Your Magic or Mine? (48 page)

Marcus started sending energy to Gloriana. He could feel their hearts beating in unison, their centers working together, the magical power of her spell reaching out from them to the vines on the other side of the path. She had been correct about their auras; energy flowing between them charged the very air. He only prayed the auras weren’t visible somehow to Walcott.

The dim lights reflecting off the wet leaves and the idiot’s feeble
lux
spell only marginally improved visibility. Walcott advanced a step at a time, the gun out in front of him. He looked like a bedraggled skinny rat, his thinning hair plastered to his skull, sharp nose almost twitching as if he was trying to smell them.

Marcus saw a couple of vine leaves on the tree trunk wiggle. One tendril, then another, reached out into the open space. Hanging from an overhead tree limb directly over the path, a larger one as thick as his thumb began to sway and grow longer.

Walcott took two more steps, stopped, spun around, and whirled again toward his previous direction. His lightball rushed frantically to follow him, but his movements were too quick, and it almost hit him in the head. Cursing, he shoved it aside.

Marcus held Gloriana tighter, and she, with her arms around his waist, gripped his sodden shirt in her fists. Their magic centers were circulating power like they had when they’d bonded—and the energy flowing between them was growing exponentially by the second. He sank into his power well, drew forth about half of it, and sent it mentally to hers. She threw it immediately into her spell. The hum dropped an octave, intensified.

Walcott shook his head and took a hand from the gun to rub his ears as he stepped forward two more paces—right next to the tree vines and directly under the hanging one. Before he could put his hand back on the gun, a tendril from the tree tapped him on the back of his head.

He jumped and looked around wildly. He must have decided the threat would come from one end of the path or the other because he backed up to the wall of vines. The whites of his eyes showing even through the gloom, he shot glances to his left and his right.

Despite what appeared to be his growing apprehension, Walcott spoke in that earlier oh-so-reasonable tone when he said, “Come out, come out, wherever you are. You can’t escape me.”

Marcus would have laughed in derision if he’d been able, but the spell and swirling energy absorbed all his attention. Glori was gathering more power and flinging it at the vines. He poured more into her well.

As she took his energy, she directed it to one place, and the hanging tendril lashed out at Walcott and knocked the gun away. Before the man could move, Glori changed the direction of her power flow to the green wall behind him. The vines at his back snaked forward to wrap around his arms. Walcott began to struggle and shout, but the plants held him tight and encircled him more densely. His lightball flashed up through green into blue before disappearing altogether.

“You can’t do this to me!” Walcott screamed as he fought. “I have powers. I’ll crush you. I’ll smear your blood from one end of your damned jungle to the other.”

“Cut the energy,” Gloriana whispered. “The vines will hold him.”

She ended the spell, and Marcus was glad they were holding on to each other. The cessation of energy flow made him slightly dizzy, and it took a few seconds to regain his equilibrium. They hadn’t moved, however, when they heard several people yelling their names and the dogs adding their calls to the din. The humans sounded like John, Fergus, and their parents.

Gleaming blades drawn, the two Swords came around the bend, two bright silver lightballs floating in the air above them and dissipating the darkness. They stopped in their tracks to stare at Walcott, who was still shouting a stream of invectives, although he had ceased struggling against the confining greenery.

“Marcus! Gloriana!” John shouted as Alaric joined the two men.

“We’re here,” Marcus said, not really surprised when his voice came out in a croak.

Keeping a grip on each other, he and Gloriana emerged from the bushes. He still wasn’t sure either of them could stand alone. Walcott subsided when he saw them and sagged against his restraints.

“What happened? Are you all right?” Fergus asked.

“We’re fine. Wet, and a little tired,” Gloriana answered in a weak tone.

“This wild man wanted to kill us. His gun’s around here somewhere,” Marcus said.

“Here it is.” Alaric picked up the gun on the edge of the path.

“Hold on to that,” John said while he studied the ensnared Walcott. “It certainly looks like you handled him. We tried calling you once we found out where he was headed, but all we got was voice mail.”

“We don’t have our phones with us,” Gloriana said.

“I switched ours to the answering machine so we wouldn’t be interrupted at dinner,” Alaric put in.

“No matter,” Fergus said. “Alaric, why don’t you tell Stefan and the ladies that Marcus and Gloriana are all right. We must settle something here with Walcott before we do anything else, and we need to ask our newest soul mates some questions.”

“Will do,” Alaric answered. “The ambulance has arrived, and we’ve managed to get the dogs in our car before they cut themselves on the glass.”

“Please tell the medics to stand by and ask Hal to come in.”

Alaric nodded and left.

“Ambulance?” Marcus asked, noting that, despite the calm, the Swords had not sheathed their weapons. “What’s going on?”

“Did Walcott throw a spell on you?” John asked. “Get close enough to touch you?”

“No,” Marcus said, and Gloriana shook her head.

“Good. We don’t have to worry about decontamination,” John said. He spread his hands apart, and his sword dissipated. “You see, Kemble told us that Walcott has some kind of crystal or stone he uses to focus. He’s had it only three weeks, and when he pulls it out, she gets a queasy feeling. It’s time we saw that item. You two stay where you are. Ready, Fergus?”

The big Sword nodded, and his blade glowed brighter as he raised it. “Ready.”

John approached Walcott, who began to struggle again, but feebly. Baldwin held up his hands in front of the thin man’s chest for a few seconds, nodded, and removed Walcott’s tie and unbuttoned his shirt. When John spread the shirt open, he said, “Looks like we were correct.”

Marcus watched as John lifted a chain over Walcott’s head. At the end of the loop dangled a dime-sized, yellowish crystal with streaks of green—a half-sharp-edged, half-semi-melted crystal—in a silver wire cage. It looked like a distorted lump of vomit to Marcus, and it gave off a foul odor and an even more fetid wave of magic power. He kept his arms tight around Gloriana, and she held herself more closely to him.

“What you see here is a genuine evil magic item,” Fergus said. “Feels like only a level two or three from here. We surmised that something besides magical fervor or a true disagreement with the sides in the debate was driving Walcott, especially once he started using threats and then violence. He’d never behaved like that previously. We haven’t learned how he obtained it yet, but we will.”

A stocky white-haired man came around the corner carrying a big, pentagon-shaped suitcase. Baldwin introduced him as Hal Thomas, a member of his Defender team. Hal said hello, set the case down, and opened it.

“What do you think, Fergus? Destroy it here?” John asked. When Fergus nodded, John turned to Gloriana. “What’s below the building? Particularly this path? Concrete? Dirt?”

“Dirt and rocks,” Gloriana said. “Some plumbing pipes. The pipes are mostly along the walls, and there are none under the path.”

“Good. With your permission, we’re going to destroy the item. That’s our procedure when we find one small and weak enough for the two of us to handle. Doing so should not harm you, your greenhouse, or the plants. Is that all right with you?”

She looked up at Marcus and smiled. “As long as we can stay to watch.”

“Yes,” Marcus said. “I want to see destroyed what’s given us such grief.”

“Okay. We usually don’t allow ‘civilians’ to watch. I see no problem, however with making an exception here, seeing what he and it put you through. Stand over there”—John pointed to a spot several feet away—”and once we start, don’t move, no matter what happens. Understood?”

“Understood,” Marcus and Gloriana said together.

“How do you feel?” Marcus asked when they reached their designated spot.

“Exhausted, but, hot damn! It worked. The merging of power and spell actually worked. I know our auras expanded. How about you?”

“I feel like I’ve run two marathons to the top of Mount Everest and back.”

“I’m sure I’ve lost weight, and my legs feel like rubber. We’ll get something to eat soon. That should help.”

They fell silent as they watched the Swords and Defender set themselves up. Hal spread out a black cloth blanket on the path and placed the suitcase on it. From the case he took a platter and a shallow bowl, both of clear crystal. He closed the luggage and placed the platter on it and the bowl on top of the platter. After making sure everything was aligned precisely, he left in the direction of the door.

John held the pendant directly over the bowl and cast a spell. The wire cage bent and opened, and the crystal fell into the bowl.

Gloriana made a growling sound, and Marcus grunted when a fist of nausea hit him in the stomach.

“Feel that?” Fergus asked. “Sort of a sickening wave? That’s one of the signs of an evil item, and it’s easy to spot. Walcott was smart enough not to wear the thing at the HeatherRidge. Too many Swords and Defenders are ultrasensitive. We’d have stopped him immediately.”

Hal came back with two emergency medical technicians from the ambulance, who took up position by Walcott. “These guys are from the medical facility in the HeatherRidge,” he said.

“What’s with the crew?” Marcus asked.

“Destruction of an evil item usually knocks out its user,” Hal answered. “Destroying the larger ones can kill whoever’s been under its control. Yes, in reality the item does control the practitioner, although it tricks the person to think he’s doing the controlling.”

“Walcott said something about ‘having powers,’“ Gloriana said.

“An item can contain certain powers and talents and can confer them on the user, even make the practitioner think he’s invincible. Looks like we’re good to go. We’re going to lay down a shielding pentagon to contain any problems. Still, don’t move from your spot.”

Hal walked over to a position between John and Fergus but about a step farther away from the case. He pointed at the ground. A glowing pentagon etched itself into the path around the men and sent shimmering walls up to the glass ceiling.

The Swords stood opposite each other about a blade’s length from the item in the bowl between them. The silver lightballs hovering above winked out. John drew his weapon, and its silver blade shone. Fergus had never ended his spell, and his sword, now a dark blue, changed color through violet into silver and then into a silver-laced gold. The light emanating from the weapons made the area as bright as day.

A hum, much deeper, fuller, and more resonant than the ones he and Gloriana had produced, vibrated through the air. The hair on the back of Marcus’s head stood up when he felt the potency of the magical energy swirling around all of them. He couldn’t help making a swift calculation. If each rise in level signaled an exponential rise in power, the amount displayed here staggered him. Furthermore, Hal was standing with a hand out to each Sword, and a faint glimmer of spell aura surrounded the three men and the object in the middle. Marcus could swear the Defender was sharing power with them like he and Glori had between themselves.

The Swords raised their weapons and brought them down to point directly at the blob of evil. “One, two, three,” Fergus said softly. On the “three,” laserflike beams shot out from their tips and converged on the object.

“One, two, three,” Fergus said again. John’s blade intensified with a whoosh into a silver-whipped gold while Fergus’s turned pure gold. The beams from the swords burned white where they met the crystal. Soon a white light surrounded the crystal and pressed in on it until the white was almost too bright to look at.

Walcott began to moan and struggle against the vines. The Swords held their positions for another five minutes.

Marcus didn’t know if it was an optical illusion, but the item seemed to be rocking, first in one direction, then another, trying to evade the sword beams. He was wondering if the crystal could escape, when, ZAP!

The deformed crystal disintegrated into a small heap of ashes.

Walcott howled, a long, mournful cry, and collapsed, only held vertical by the vines around his arms and torso.

The Swords sheathed their weapons, bringing darkness back to the jungle. Hal cast several lightballs to illuminate the scene, and the medics began to extricate Walcott from his vine prison.

“Hal,” John said, “if you’ll take care of the item’s remains, we’ll see Gloriana and Marcus back to the house.”

“Come on, you two,” Fergus said, making shooing motions. “There are some people who want to see you, and I want to hear how you caught the bastard with those vines.”

Once outside, Marcus and Gloriana were enveloped by their parents while the dogs danced attendance. Stefan drove them in Marcus’s car to Gloriana’s house to change into dry clothes and back to the big farmhouse, where Antonia and Alaric hustled to fix food to replenish their energy. Only when they had eaten would her mother allow them to tell what had happened.

After hearing the tale, Fergus spoke up. “I believe I’ve heard of another one or two couples like you, so different originally, but so very compatible at the end. I’ve never seen such a merged lightball before, however. As for merging and exchanging magical energy, Defender teams do it all the time. It’s still a rare talent.”

“From what you’ve told us,” John interjected, “I doubt you’re candidates for the Defenders. The merging talent usually manifests itself quite early, and it appears you can only utilize it when in physical contact. Defenders don’t need contact. But it won’t hurt to have you tested.”