Adam (32 page)

Sagan’s attack was enough to startle the Demon necromancer, throwing off his focus and concentration, destroying his spell. He was too young and too unskilled in his new craft to recover immediately. It opened his mind and nerves to the scream of the falcon that swooped in from above him. That scream had the power to strike fear in the hearts of those who heard it. By the time the falcon landed in the running form of Damien’s wife and Jasmine’s frequent adversary in life, Jasmine had taken advantage of the opening Syreena had created for her and leapt on the Demon’s shoulders, using the powerful strength of her legs around his neck to snap it in two. Perhaps even three, given the violence she used to wrench it around nearly 180 degrees.

Jasmine landed on her feet and found herself facing Syreena. She met the Lycanthrope’s charcoal and wild-colored streaked eyes. She smoothed back her hair with one hand and shrugged her opposite shoulder.

“Thanks,” she said.

She didn’t have time to appreciate the expression of surprise Syreena gave her. Although in the back of her mind she acknowledged exactly why Syreena would find even the smallest of common courtesies from her surprising. She had probably never given her one before. Certainly not with any sincerity.

Perhaps that had been wrong of her.

Perhaps not.

Jasmine didn’t have time for much in the way of soul-searching. When she had taken flight early on, she had separated the forces Ruth had sent against her. Now the rest of them had caught up to her, Syreena, and the remaining enemy Vampire, who had slunk aside and tried to move away unnoticed. Somewhere in the shadows was Sagan. He would not move forward until needed.

Jasmine didn’t care what Valera said about magic users being redeemable, about addictions and withdrawal and all of that touchy-feely nonsense. The equation was simple for her. If they threatened her life, she would respond in kind. They had made a free choice to immerse themselves in this wickedness long before it had tainted them with addiction. As far as Jasmine was concerned, that act of free will made them fully responsible and fully deserving of the death she would deliver.

She turned to face the newcomers, Syreena stepping up to her side.

“I’ll take the two on the left, you take the two on the right?”

“Yeah, right.” Jasmine laughed. “Give me a sec and I’ll be able to help you with your two.”

Together the women launched themselves forward.

Ruth mentally and magically regrouped.

She had been blindsided by Damien’s sudden appearance and attack. But she had been a warrior serving under the Demon Elijah for over two centuries, battling her way through Vampires and Lycanthropes when the Demons had warred with each in turn. She had learned to shake things off quickly. She teleported out of Damien’s reach, out of all their reach, and took a breath to scan the scope of the battlefield in front of her. It was clear Adam had not come alone. He and Jasmine had somehow snuck others in under her guard. How? Had she not scanned mentally for others? She was the most powerful Mind Demon alive. No one could shield their thoughts from her. Yet now Jasmine had somehow managed to do so, and these others as well? Damien she could understand. He was an ancient Vampire, his mental powers certainly above all others. But his Lycanthrope trollop? She was as weak as they came. Her only claim to power was her ability to shift into two forms. Ruth had once kidnapped her and tortured her with ridiculous ease, and she would have killed her, too, had Damien not interfered. However, that, too, had played in her favor. Damien’s rescuing Syreena had set off a chain of events allowing Ruth to find Nicodemous and an alliance that had doubled her power.

If only she had had time to resurrect him!

Just the same, she had confidence that she was powerful enough to take on an entire army of Vampires and Demons. There was nothing any of them had that she had not seen before and had not learned how to defeat.

It was time to stop toying with them and get to the serious business of eradicating the pests once and for all.

The locking spell ...

Ruth was a master of thoughts and the Mind. Enough to recognize when a thought was not her own. Most female Mind Demons were only empaths, unable to read the thoughts of others, but she had grown beyond that limitation and, she believed, in the short time since then had learned how to surpass even her male counterparts who were proficient telepaths.

The thought felt strange, but she had been inside the mind before. Enough to recognize it. She glanced to the right and saw her latest protégée, the black-and-gray-haired girl whose name she could never remember. She met her eyes and spoke the thought again in her mind.

The locking spell.

So simple. So perfect! However, it took some time to lay the groundwork for the spell, and she was in the thick of battle.

Begin the spell. I will take over once you near completion.

The girl nodded assent and began to cast, blue light swirling from her hands, wrapping around her, spreading over the ground in a small circle until she was completely enveloped in a cylinder of blue electricity.

Ruth focused on her enemies with more aggressive spells. Quicker spells. The power snapped out of her like lightning, feeding her even as it drained her. Savage bolts leapt from Ruth’s hands, striking the Vampire Prince and the Enforcer. There was nothing either of them could do to escape the attack. It would ravage the Enforcer no matter what form he shifted into; and no matter how strong and ancient he was, no matter what animal he was now able to shift into thanks to feeding off his Lycanthrope bride, the Vampire would be equally unable to avoid her attack.

Both men were struck, flung back like a couple of boneless dolls being tossed from the jaws of a playful dog. Then the maw of that dog caught them up again, power compressing them with an unbearable strength. A strength they could not escape. Had she been fresh into the spell, she would not have needed the locking spell. She would simply crush them until they popped like overcooked peas under a treading foot.

But she was tiring, and the spell took a great deal of raw personal power. Power she had initially wasted while Adam toyed with her. She realized now that had been his plan all along. To trick her into tiring herself out by dangling himself before her like bait while the Prince held himself in reserve.

Tricky, tricky. She might almost be impressed, if not for the fact that she knew she was about to strike them a lethal blow.

She had to disengage when she felt the locking spell had reached critical mass. She reached to take the spell over, creating the receptacle. She shaped a crystal ball into her hands, the clear glass of it the purest thing anyone would ever see. She magically lowered it to the ground and opened it up. Light from it sparkled in an upward cone, and she carefully moved away from it.

Now the trap was ready.

She teleported away, appearing at Adam’s back. The Water Demon was on his knees, gasping for breath as he tried to recover from her previous attack. She leaned forward and whispered.

“You are going to wish you’d never met the future,” she promised him.

And with a lightning-quick movement she hurled an explosive force against him, sending him flying toward the cone of light. He was headed into it, nothing to stop him.

Yet suddenly he sprang to a stop, as if an invisible safety net had caught his big body. When he touched the net it sparkled into existence, blue light etching the shape of it, sending him rolling safely to the ground.

Infuriated and shocked, Ruth twisted to and fro, searching for the necromancer who had turned against her, the necromancer who dared to cast magic counter to her own.

She saw her then, a curvy little redhead kneeling behind a tree, her hand extended toward Adam, her fingers curling to withdraw the energy so it wouldn’t be wasted once she was certain Adam was safe. Then the woman looked Ruth dead in her eyes, and Ruth could see the fear inside her. She was strong, Ruth sensed. A natural-born Witch. A being who, unlike Ruth, had to speak spells aloud or in her head, could call magic from herself and from all around herself as naturally as she could draw breath. She had been born to make magic.

Yet Ruth saw into her mind and saw she was afraid of her own gifts. She saw the woman was limited by her fears and limited by her conscience. She would only use defensive magics. She would only use magic to protect herself and others.

Ruth laughed at her.

“You idiot! You think what you do is good magic? Clean magic? It is the same as mine. You are as deep into it as I am, and going deeper with every spell!”

“You’re wrong,” the redhead said, her lip moving nervously between her teeth. She glanced around, looking for someone. Someone who could comfort or support her. But there was no one.

She would be so easy to destroy. Ruth could easily jump into her mind and twist that fear into something the little Witch would never be able to escape.

The portal ...

Again, a thought not her own, but a gentle reminder that the locking spell was drawing on her energy every moment the portal stayed open. It drew her attention away from Valera and brought her back to Damien and Adam, whom she deemed the bigger threats. She had to get rid of them, just in case her companions were not able to manage Jasmine and Syreena. She was strong, and her protégé was proving to be a huge asset, but they would not have much success if they were so thoroughly outnumbered. And who was to say what other Demons or Nightwalkers were waiting in the wings? Ruth couldn’t take any more chances. It was unwise to do head-to-head battle with these brethren. She had always understood that. It would benefit her far more to escape for the moment and get back to her workroom, where the key component of her most powerfully destructive spell ever lay trussed to her workbench.

She would have far more victory over the Demons by destroying Kestra and Noah than she ever would fighting them like this. So Ruth cast a snare, snatching Damien up into it, pausing only a moment to enjoy the fruitlessness of his struggles against the power that held him. There were no hands to hit, arms to break—no weaknesses to exploit so he could free himself. All his ancient power was for naught as she pushed him toward the portal.

That was when a vine burst out of the ground and lashed itself around her calf. The living thing, made strong by magic, yanked at Ruth, pulling her off her feet and slamming her hard to the ground. Once her concentration was broken, Damien was freed. He hit the ground hard, rolling and attempting to get to his feet, but she had abused him greatly and there was no quick recovery from that. She took satisfaction in his pain even as she threw her attention back to the little Witch cowering behind the tree.

“This?” Ruth laughed with contempt. “I am the master of this spell!”

Jasmine and Syreena each recovered from her final opponent simultaneously, throwing back their heads and their hair to take stock of what was happening around them. Their eyes met and each woman had a heartbeat of time to appreciate the deadly skills of the other. Syreena’s ability to shift form on the fly had always been her greatest strength, and she had also spent her entire lifetime training in the fighting techniques of the Monks of the Pride. Ancient and powerful, she had been blessed with their knowledge and had always been their best student. And even though she had outgrown that part of her life long ago, the skills would always be at her fingertips whenever she needed them.

Jasmine acknowledged Syreena’s strength for the first time. She appreciated it for what it was. Suddenly she felt like she was seeing a completely different Syreena than the one she had known for the past two years. She didn’t fully understand why, in this moment of all moments, it was happening. They had fought together before. Jasmine had seen her move and fight and draw on the most incredible ingenuity.

She had simply never felt true appreciation for it before.

There was no time to dwell on it at present either. Simultaneously the two women recalled the Vampire who had been sitting by the wayside, watching to see how the battle turned. He and the Vampire Jasmine had originally attacked were the only ones not dead. There was no sense in leaving them at their backs, a potential threat that could attack later while they were fighting Ruth. Though both women were itching to get a piece of that deceptive traitor, each for her own reasons of vengeance, they had to finish their part of the battle first.

They couldn’t see either Vampire, though.

But suddenly the shadows resolved into the shape of a man. Sagan and his bloodied
khurkhuri
blade stood strong in the nearly full moonlight. He tossed something in Jasmine’s direction, and her preternatural instincts and reflexes allowed her to snatch it out of the air.

She opened her palm to see the long white match to the fang she had in her pocket.

“I thought maybe a nice pair of earrings,” Sagan offered.

Jasmine laughed.

“Perfect. Did you get both Vampires?”

He nodded. A simple gesture, but one that spoke of the fabulous strength and skill of a Shadowdweller penance priest. He might have resigned from his position, but he could never resign from his skills.

Then suddenly, he gave a jerk, as if someone had stabbed him through the head. The expression that moved across his face was a combination of fear and fury the likes of which Jasmine had never seen before.

“Valera needs me. The battle does not go well.”

He took off at a run, leaping through the forest, dodging trees and low scrub that seemed placed in his way just to slow him down. Nothing could keep him from the side of his mate when she needed him. Nothing but ...

Light.

Sagan jolted to a stop, dodging behind a tree to protect himself from the blue light bursting in all directions on the battlefield. Even so, he was scorched all over his exposed skin. Somehow, Valera’s protective spell had worn off. Probably because of her broken concentration. Now, as long as light stood between him and Valera, there was nothing he could do to help her. And in his mind he felt her desperation and insecurity. She had come to this battle knowing she had never hurt or killed anything in her life, that it was because the core of her soul was so opposed to the idea of harming another that she was able to break free of her black magic addiction in the first place. Without that powerful core belief, she wouldn’t be who she was.