Five: Out of the Pit (Five #2) (15 page)

aige. Wait.” Halli stepped to my side and laid a gentle hand on my arm. “Do you think killing him is the best solution?”

“Yes.” I turned around and took aim.

“Paige! I have an idea. Please listen,” Halli begged.

I reluctantly lowered my arm and took a couple of deep breaths to calm the storm of anger ripping through my body. “What’s your idea Halli?”

“We trap them here, somehow, and summon the others. They can help us decide what to do with them.”

“Do you really think they deserve to live? What could they possibly have to offer mankind?”

“That isn’t our place to judge. I agree, they’re a menace and shouldn’t be left to roam around free, but I don’t want you to do something in a fit of anger that you might regret later. You aren’t a killer, Paige. It’s one thing to kill when defending your life, but this is different. We have them under control. Let’s get the others here and make a group decision.”

I sighed and looked at my feet. “We can’t summon them, Hal. I didn’t bring my necklace and yours is broken. They only work if they’re intact.” I raised my eyes to meet hers.

Then I hit the ground, hard. Grease Ball’s binding had obviously worn off. He tackled me full force, straddled my hips and pressed my arms to the ground with his hands. His tackle also knocked Halli down. Just as I turned my head in her direction I saw the first guy I’d bound jump at her before she could get up.

Grease Ball moved his knees up to hold my arms with his full weight, grabbed my shirt with both hands and ripped it down to my navel. Feeling helpless and exposed, my stomach lurched as thoughts of rape raced through my head. Panic surged through my veins like acid, burning, forcing me into action. I activated my shield bracelet and a force field erupted between the bracelet and my attacker’s knee. He flew away from me and landed about ten feet away with a grunt.

“
Fulminis!”
I cast a lightning bolt at Halli’s attacker. Halli punched him in the throat, collapsing his airway, just before I released the spell. His head jerked back and the blue streak of electricity zinged past him, singeing his hair.

The lightning hit the top of the cliff wall to one side of where the jeep was parked. Huge pieces broke off and fell, crushing the jeep and partially blocking the exit. I jumped to my feet and helped Halli get the two hundred pound gorilla off of her. He was turning blue, the muscles in his neck straining to try to get air in through his crushed windpipe. I hit him with a blast of air strong enough to knock him several feet away from her.

Halli jumped to her feet. Without saying anything, we knew what the other was doing. Halli turned her attention to the two burned men, to reinforce their binding before it wore off. I turned to Grease Ball. He was slowly getting to his feet—and I didn’t want him to succeed. I ran to him and planted a kick to his abdomen that caused him to double over. I spun around and delivered a power infused roundhouse kick to his face. His nose, along with multiple facial bones and teeth crunched on impact. Blood flew from his destroyed face, spraying all over me.

He fell to the ground, hard. I didn’t think he would get up from that one, but I put a binding spell on him just in case. I’d watched enough slasher movies in my pre-magic life to know better than to assume he was out of play.

The guy Halli had throat-punched no longer struggled. He laid still, eyes staring into the cloudless sky. It looked like I wasn’t the only one with blood on my hands.

I glanced at Halli then followed her gaze to the exit. We silently walked over to inspect the rubble strewn opening between the cliffs. No way we were getting out through there. We could climb it, but that would take too much time. Plus, the newly fallen rocks didn’t appear to be very stable.

As the adrenaline wore off, my arms hung limply at my sides, too heavy to lift. I stared at the ground, too tired to raise my head. The fatigue caused by using a bunch of magic in such a short amount of time made me feel like a marathon runner that had to crawl to the finish line.

“Well,” I began, “Any ideas what we should do now?”

“Finish closing off that exit, then portal out of here so we can go get Joe, Johnathan, Alec, and Seth.”

“Hal, I’ve never portalled
myself
before, only rocks and stuff, and I haven’t even done that with any accuracy since before… before I went blind. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“You can do it, Paige. Your magic is so strong. Now that you can see, you can do it. I know you can.” I wish I had her unquestionable certainty.

“Any other ideas? You know, ones that don’t include the possibility I might end up lost in the
between
forever?”

She shook her head. “It’s our only way out, unless you want to risk climbing. I guess you need to decide which one is the bigger risk.”

As I stood, considering the options, a rock that probably weighed a ton, came loose from the cliff side and tumbled down onto the pile below. All the other rocks shifted, dust spewed forth, and we backed up—away from the precariously balanced rock tower.

The still shifting boulders pretty much made up my mind. My trust in magic was much stronger than my trust in defying the laws of physics. “Portalling it is. Let’s bring down some more rocks. I don’t want to risk that these specimens of wasted human flesh might be able to climb out before we can return.”

“Okay, let’s bring down the other side.” Halli grinned.

I decided to stick with lightning, since it’d worked so well before. Halli wanted to practice a spell she’d been working on. I threw a lightning bolt and sent a shower of rocks down. She picked up a cantaloupe sized rock, heaved it in the air, then hit it with a thrust of power that sent it hurtling toward the rock cliff. The fast moving projectile hit with incredible strength and caused a chain reaction. A rockslide ensued that filled the opening up to the top of the cliffs.

When the dust cleared, only one small piece of one tire of the jeep and the hand of the man with the broken neck were visible.

A groan came from one of the men behind us. I smiled a tight lipped smile at Grease Ball. His face was a disaster. His eyes were already swollen almost shut. Blood came from his nose and mouth—where he’d lost several teeth.

“What didya’ do that for? How we s’posed to get outa here?” We turned to face the burned men, still under the binding spell.

“You aren’t,” I said.

“But you can’t just leave us in here. We’ll die!”

“And, what exactly were your plans for
us
, sleezeball? A nice tea party and a lift back into town? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Take pity on you?” I laughed.

“It was all
his
idea!” The burned, bound man looked at Grease Ball.

“Actually, it was an evil Warlock named Brone’s idea. That makes no difference. You’re evil men who were going to carry out a heinous act. If anything, you’re worse than your swollen-faced friend over there. At least he was doing it for money—you were just joining in for a little depraved fun. Now, shut up. I don’t want to hear your miserable voice anymore.” Just to make sure, I pointed at him and said, “
Mutus.
” I repeated the muting spell on his burned companion.

I looked at Halli, then at the collapsed entrance. I rubbed shaky hands over my face. My guts twisted into knots at the thought of portalling out of here “I’m scared, Hal. I’ve used up a lot of magical energy today. I’m feeling a little drained. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You can do it. You’re so much stronger than the rest of us. You could probably portal clear across the world if you wanted to.”

“Yeah, right. Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to smell the stench of these losers anymore. What’s our destination?”

“Well, since it’s your first time, let’s just go somewhere close. How about to just outside the rock cave?” Halli suggested.

I concentrated on picturing the pile of boulders in my head. I focused on one spot in front of the main entrance into the cave. My stomach roiled. I closed my eyes tight and planted the picture firmly in my mind. I forced my will into the spell with all my strength to open a portal. I was sucked into the void. I opened my eyes to complete darkness. I couldn’t breathe.

My heart raced, quickly using up what little oxygen I had left to fuel it.
I’m blind again
, was all I could think for a moment. Then I remembered the two times Joe had portalled us. The darkness was so thick it felt like a living being. I still couldn’t breathe.

It was taking too long. Something was wrong.

Little stars exploded beneath my eyelids. The lack of oxygen was taking its toll.
Joe was wrong, you don’t float in the void forever if you get stuck in the
between
; you just die. What a relief…

harp pain shot into my ankles as my feet slammed into the ground and I fell to the sandy, rocky earth like a boneless jellyfish. I gasped for air for what seemed like the first time in hours, though I knew it couldn’t have been that long. My lungs ached with starvation for oxygen and they drank it in hungrily.

I opened my eyes and saw the sunlight above me. Relief washed over me—I could see. And, I was alive.

“Paige! Oh, Paige! You scared the crap out of me! You left before me and I’ve been here for at least two minutes. I thought you were lost.” Tears streamed down Halli’s dirt streaked face. “I thought you were lost.”

I sat up. My body ached with exhaustion. “I thought I was, too. Help me up.”

She pulled me to my feet. “We should wait a while, so you can get some strength back.”

I shook my head. “If we don’t go now, I think I’ll just slip into a coma for two or three days. Let’s head back into town.”

Halli reached up and buttoned my jacket over the ripped shirt.

“Thanks. I forgot about that.”

Over two hours later, we finally reached town. I didn’t think I’d ever been that exhausted before. I sat on the curb next to the Italian restaurant we’d eaten at the day before, my body shaking uncontrollably. I inspected Halli, sitting next to me—we must’ve looked like homeless waifs. I’d healed Halli’s cuts but the goose egg that had formed on her eyebrow remained. It had shrunk a little and now turned a horrendous purple color. Some of the blood was obviously draining down around her eye as the skin there was getting more colorful by the minute.