Page 87 of Transfiguration
A touch of wind sliding through the area around the house told him there were dozens of people outside. Part of the Kresnik, perhaps? They surrounded the house like some sort of physical barrier. But the wind saw them as nothing, little more than sticks to be blown over.
“You lied. The fae aren’t supposed to lie!”
“Nate,” Con said, half stunned to see a man he’d worked with and mostly trusted for years standing at the edge of the circle. Was he the blond man who had true named Kaine?
Bryar was gone, the dark beasts slinking away into the shadows. Con clenched his fists in rage as the wind power settled. He’d had decades of balancing a power greater than with which he’d been born. Wind’s will whipped at him, demanding control, but he shoved her aside and focused on the little girl who stood over Luca’s grave, her eyes huge.
“Bella,” Con whispered.
A shadow of something surrounded her, large and reflecting light like an oil slick. Was she shielding? Con took a step in her direction, but she shook her head and pointed to Kaine. The outline followed her, moving with multiple legs like a giant spider. Molly?
“You said he wasn’t wind!” Nate shouted at Kaine. The bonds around Kaine tightened, and he dripped blood, a mix of gold and red, fae and human, but remained still as a statue, eyes glowing with power, jaw clenched shut. “Lying means death for the fae! I’m going to rip you apart!”
He held his hands up and cast something without words or symbols, the power smashing into the ground at Bella’s feet, bouncing off the shield around her and landing in an explosion in the dirt. Earth blasted up, but the spell faded, absorbed into the rippling magic of the protective barrier. Was that Molly?
The ground bubbled like water, shoving upward as if it were forcing something out. Fuck. All they needed now were attacking zombies on top of the rest of this mess.
Con gasped as he watched the familiar shade of Luca’s hair appear. Luca’s physical form shoved from the ground with force. He didn’t look burned anymore, or damaged at all, which made Con’s heart leap with joy. But a rolling tide of menace projected off of him, and when his eyes opened, they were the crimson glowing black holes of the revenant. Con sucked in a hard breath and prepared himself to leap at Luca, fearing he would attack Bella.
“Take the new vessel,” Nate commanded the demon. “We’ll grant you the power of the four central Pillars and hunt the others later.” His gaze fell on Con and a spell slammed into Con like a mallet, smacking him across the ground and binding him. Fuck, this asshole was powerful. “You want to die with them, so be it.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Con’s runes sizzled, the power in them working instantly to unravel the binding spell, but finding it worked to rebind everything the runes ate through. Dammit.
He called the wind for more strength but couldn’t reach it as the weight of demonic energy filled the space. A tide of black smoke poured free from Matthew’s body, engulfing Luca’s revenant. Symbols glowed up and down Nate’s arms. He had his own runes? Were they to bind the demon? Had that been the plan all along? Put the demon in Luca and take the power of all the Pillars into one vessel? Could anyone survive that sort of power?
No, no, no! Con thought, his heart pounding in fear. He fought to break the binding spell before the demon transferred, though he didn’t know how to break the connection between Nate and the demon. He cast the wind wider, away from himself and the surrounding bonds. Con called to the power outside the house to gather energy and slammed that rage into the chanters encircling the house. The wind shrieked of triumph as it smashed people into the walls and ground, bones breaking, the sound dying, and power leached away from the glowing array within.
Wind rolled and spun, forming a rippling barricade of tornados to fling the chanters and debris around like they were nothing more than pebbles. Con felt a lot of them die, the wind dancing with joy at the power unleashed.
The swelling angry buzz of the ley lines stuttered, and the spell to fuel the rise of magic within them, snapped. The binding on Sam flickered, but didn’t break, weakening. His eyes were open, gaze on Con, and Con wondered if their Focus bond would help. They needed to be freed. Con would rip Nate’s arms off to stop the runes if necessary, but he had to break the stupid binding spell first. He was the Pillar now, wasn’t he? He smiled, thinking the wind would enjoy turning Nate into dust, and he called down a tide of dancing hurricane-like wind.
A roll of power heaved through the house, like a fist of energy smashing through the last remaining batch of power pulled by the few witches left outside. Whatever leftover barrier surrounding the house vanished with a pop, and a figure launched themselves across the distance, hitting Matthew’s physical form like a linebacker, ripping him away from Sam and forcing him yards from the array.
Gabe landed all over Matthew with claws and fangs bared, and eyes red as nightmares. The shifting transfer of the demon stuttered, and it turned toward Gabe. Pooling around him as if it could take Gabe over but finding itself unable to find a foothold while Gabe swirled with earthen magic, green plants instantly healing any damage he took.
Gabe and Matthew fought, a blur of slashing and snarls, not unlike beasts, but too fast to see more than a rare movement or spurt of blood. The demon returned to Matthew’s body, snapped back like a rubber band, to help with the fight. A revenant shouldn’t have been a match for Gabe, but the demon hadn’t left it completely.
Nate turned toward Kaine, pulling a dagger out of his boot, the shape all too familiar, it looked exactly the same as the ones used to kill Luca. Con snarled and yanked power from Sam through the Focus bond to shove more energy into his runes to break through the spell as Nate stalked toward Kaine.
“I’m going to tear you to shreds and make you wish you could die. You lying little brat.”
Off to the edge of the array, the urn shattered, as if someone had hit it with an invisible blast. What the fuck?
The power blinked, magic and the few remaining lights, flickering as if they’d been hit by a massive thunderstorm. The smoke of the demon puffed out for a few seconds, the binding spell weakening. Did having Matthew’s soul help Nate keep everyone bound and control the demon?
The power in the array flickered, stuttering, and Sam exploded from his bonds in a burst of fire like some sort of inferno god, his skin blazing and burning but reforming instantly.
Con surged through the magic binding him, the whole thing shattering with a whip of energy he funneled through himself, Sam, and directed outward. Con slammed his magic into Luca’s form, wrapping him up in the wind, and ripping him away from the demon smoke. The beast fought, wanting to be free, revenant in control as it kicked, punched, and snarled at the bonds. Con wrapped a containment spell around the arboretum, hoping to keep Luca’s physical form, the demon, and all the wild magic, inside.
Bryar popped free of the veil beside Nate, just as demonic looking as when he’d vanished before, sword ready, and slashed down, severing Nate’s right arm, and the glowing runes winked out. The last of the magic in the array snapped, freeing Kelly and unleashing all the magic wrapped in the lines of the array, and releasing the ley lines to twist back like lightning bolts of raw magic.
The backlash exploded like a bomb in the small space. Con thought for a few seconds they would all die and gave his will completely over to the wind. It formed a barrier that he shoved through the bond to Sam, protecting him, and even Luca with an added layer of wind.Con struggled to hold it in place as the magic exploded around them. Blinded, he closed his eyes and expected death. He could feel Luca close. The familiar tentative touch Luca often began their day with. Anare you awake? andcan I kiss youtype of sensation that made Con’s heart leap. Was Luca there?
Unlike the goddess of earth who often felt maternal, the wind power was a malignant energy that wanted freedom and destruction above all. It settled over Con like a weight forming around him, manifesting a masculine presence that wasn’t human, but a god, as it drank down the power and accepted Con’s request for help. It sucked down the rippling power spewed by the damaged ley lines and used it to take control of Con’s magic.
But the god had him and wanted it all, dragging strength from the ley lines and the other elements as if it could become a single entity to control them all. He felt like the wind tore him to shreds and reformed a dozen times. He screamed, but no sound came out.