Page 73 of Transfiguration

“What the fuck?” Sam muttered again, unable to fathom all that was happening. He shifted Con’s weight against him and reached for Seiran, slamming an extra edge of energy into the witch, his amplifier power on high. He’d only be able to maintain that level for a few minutes before wearing down, but he’d practiced it enough with Con to know how to push the extra power toward another.

Seiran grimaced. The barrier of trees thickened, power coating everything until the entire area pulsed painfully in the back of Sam’s brain. He kept pushing the power, drawing from the ley lines beneath the house, spinning the strength to shove more into Seiran. Whatever was behind that barrier was bad. That much he could sense. If it got out, what then?

Was it one of the fae? Perhaps the warrior? Sam’s gaze found Bryar yards away, huddled in the corner, looking demonic as the black smoke spun around him, turning red and back to black, coated in some sort of dark blood magic. He, too, was wrapped up in vines, but these were green, filled with life, and without thorns. Kaine crouched nearby, not close enough to touch, but his worried gaze still on his sire.

Kaine looked up, as if feeling Sam’s gaze on him.Can you get Gabe to Luca?

Sam blinked at the sound of Kaine’s voice in his head. Luca was dead. Sam frowned and looked back to where Gabe lay, unable to move, his entire body trembling from the weight of the dark shadows. Four feet away was where Luca should be. Was he there at all? Would he be gone? Absorbed back into the earth? Sam gripped Con tightly to his chest, hugging him, lifting him with ease as he rose unsteadily to his feet. The waves of power made them all unsteady, but Sam held Con as he crossed the distance and reached down to grab Gabe’s shirt.

The dark bits immediately latched onto Sam, but slid away. What the hell?

He dragged Gabe the few feet, dropping him onto the barren spot of dirt and standing there for a minute with Con in his arms, wishing for Luca to rise and all of this to be over.

The dark ooze over Gabe receded, slinking away into the dirt.

Sam gasped. Were they attacking Luca? He looked for Kaine again, finding the young fae across the room, keeping his distance from everyone. Sam had never been angry at a kid before but thought for a minute that he would leap across the space to kill Kaine if Luca was being hurt.

The dirt didn’t react, and there was no great awakening from Luca beneath the soil. Sam’s only sensation of Luca was still that vague sense of him snuggled into their side, weightless and ghostlike. Sam wondered if it was wishful thinking or a memory rather than reality.

The last of the shadow slugs slunk away from Gabe. He gasped and crawled toward the grass. “We need to move Hart,” he said. He didn’t get up and looked as weak as a baby. “This is an old Ascendance curse,” Gabe pointed to the tree wrapped circle cage.

Bryar let out a roar, and the vines surrounding him erupted. He didn’t look human at all, his fae form gigantic and wafting the mix of black and red smoke. Kaine glanced back toward Seiran, gave a tight smile, and then launched himself at Bryar. A portal opened up behind Bryar, and Kaine dragged him through. The dark bits latched onto Kaine the second he touched Bryar. Seiran gasped, but they both vanished across the veil and the opening closed.

The ground shook as the ley lines took another explosive hit. Sam felt it like a punch in the gut and gasped for air. The barrier of giant vines shattered, pieces of wood flying off like daggers with each hit from the inside. “What the fuck?” Sam said.

Seiran was on his knees, bleeding from his nose, and blood tears streaming down his face, his hands up, the power pouring from him as he held the barrier. No one was stronger than Seiran. How was any of this possible?

“Sam, get Hart to Luca,” Gabe said.

“Hart?” Hart was behind that barrier? Sam looked down at the earth beneath him and felt nothing. Was Luca there? He carefully set Con nearby, a few inches from where Gabe had crawled. Something drained the magic and strength from Sam. Not Con, not what he gave Seiran. What the hell? He looked down. Was Luca doing that?

“Sam…” Gabe said, sounding strained. His skin looked waxy. Seiran was using their Focus bond to hold Hart too. Neither the vampire or the witch was going to last much longer.

“If Ronnie can’t hold him, I’m not sure I can either,” Sam said.

“Don’t need to hold him… get him to Luca.”

Fine. Sam was good at nothing if not using brute strength. Maybe Seiran would have to force Hart back to the ground where Luca had gone? Would that help Luca return? Sam’s head spun with too much chaos to make sense of it. “Drop the barrier, Ronnie,” Sam demanded, readying himself to launch at Hart.

He expected Seiran to protest, but the man had to be running out of strength because the massive vines that acted as a barrier instantly turned to dust, revealing the monster within, which didn’t look like Hart at all, rather some shifted werebeast of unknown origin.

“What the fuck,” Sam cursed for the hundredth time, but launched himself at Hart, slamming into him with what little strength he had left. A wallop of wind added power to his momentum, propelling them both several feet to the edge of the barren dirt plot. The darkness reached for Sam, but instantly slid away, into the ground. Was Luca doing that?

He fought to hold Hart, or the beast that was now Hart, and keep him from reaching for Con, who lay unconscious just outside the plot, but vines rose again, wrapping around Hart’s limbs and yanking him down. The ooze latched onto the vines, making them turn gray and brittle. Hart ripped through them and more formed, dragging him into the dirt like some scary batch of quicksand.

Sam’s heart pounded in fear as Hart grabbed onto him, yanking Sam with him. Sam didn’t want to go back to ground. Not when Con needed him, and Sam had only just returned from madness. He rolled his last bits of energy into a blast of heat. Fire erupted from where Hart touched him, burning and making the monster scream, but it let go.

Sam stumbled backward, falling on his ass. The vines continued to grow, pull, die and reform, dragging Hart deeper and deeper, until the dirt sucked him down and the topsoil moved for a few more seconds like a living thing. A barrier of vines wove itself over the top of the dirt, like a thick set of prison bars.

Seiran crawled to the edge of the section and collapsed onto his side, breathing hard. Sam felt much the same, exhausted, like he’d used every drop of power he’d ever hoped to have. He stared across the distance to Con and wished he had the man in his arms. It was Gabe who carefully lifted Con and carried him to Sam’s side, then collapsed next to Seiran.

Sam wrapped his arms around Con, laying his head on Con’s chest to listen to his heartbeat. The runes were on again, and Sam could feel them like a vibration against his soul, drawing energy to refill stores and even pushing some toward Sam. He breathed in a sigh of relief that Con seemed okay, even if Luca was still in the ground and now some sort of crazed version of Hart was trapped with him.

He blinked a few times when he realized someone covered them with a blanket. It was Kelly who leaned over him, whispering something, but Sam was too tired to make out the words. He blinked again, or tried to, but his eyes didn’t open again as sleep tugged him down.

THIRTY-TWO

Con ached. Everything hurt, dragging him from sleep and back to the world of the living. Every joint and bone felt like it was on fire. Even his hair hurt and he didn’t know how that was possible. Con felt like he’d aged while sleeping, his body thrumming with a ping-pong game of pain, nerves lighting up as whatever electrical impulses controlling them suddenly reactivated. And he was burning up. Was he feverish?