Page 88 of Transfiguration
He could see Sam shouting but couldn’t make out what he said, and the wind howled like a banshee. The power wrapped around Luca’s revenant squeezed it as if the wind wanted it destroyed, but Luca was theirs. Con didn’t want him dead. He wanted his lover back, even if that meant he was a vampire now, or a witch, whatever. The god demanded control and Con trembled as he fought to rein in the power. If he couldn’t pull it back, they would all die.
THIRTY-NINE
Luca used everything he had to smash the urn and chaos erupted. The power fueling the dark waves of magic that had been eating at the weave of the world snapped away, like it didn’t have the strength to continue devouring it all. Rainbow ribbons of elemental power expanded to bursting. The entire space overflowed with energy.
It was too much all at once. An explosion of power ripped Luca apart. His consciousness scattered for a few seconds, and he floated on the particles of magic spreading throughout the room. It was too much of everything, but something pulled him down, dragging the pieces of him back together. When his vision refocused he was beside Bella, Molly gigantic around them, shielding them from magic. That was some crazy power the spider had.
“Thanks,” Luca said, hoping she heard him with all the undulating magic, deafening in volume, around them. From this angle, all that flashing energy looked like a rainbow car wash shooting colored water to a blaze of bubbles and confusion.
Matthew’s soul stuttered and jumped, not as solid as the wind Pillar had been. Perhaps because he’d been separated from his body too long? But Luca watched his faded shade bolt toward his physical body as if pulled by a magnet. Luca hadn’t felt a pull to his own body when it had rose, was that a bad thing?
Con’s power wrapped Luca’s physical form up in the wind, shackling it in invisible chains to keep the revenant from attacking anyone, and the remaining dark shadows couldn’t break through the barrier. Luca wondered if he could get to it and reclaim the body as his. The surrounding power surged in dangerous waves, and he was weak. He had used too much to break the urn.
Gabe battled with the demon, while Matthew’s soul fought the shadows that made up the demon’s spirit. Nate did something that ripped the soul backward toward him. He bound it up in a ball, as though it was little more than a piece of paper to crumple beneath his fist, and held it. Free of the secondary battle, the demon’s attack on Gabe intensified, and Gabe wasn’t winning. He took several hits that splattered blood everywhere.
Fuck.
Bryar appeared, attacking Nate, slicing off an arm, which made the last of the array of symbols flash and fade, blinking out. Sam burst free, swinging, and launched himself at Matthew.
Nate wrapped a shield of power around himself and Matthew’s soul. Bryar’s sword bounced off the shield, making the fae snarl.
Kaine remained bound. Magic exploded as the ley lines snapped back to their natural places. The sections forced to cross pulsed with bombs of bright hot power, too much gathered to dissipate naturally, and Luca feared everyone would be obliterated. He did his best to absorb the magic like he was a battery, letting it refill his strength.
His gaze found Con, torn apart by the wind and reformed over and over like a nightmare on replay. Luca thought about the shield Molly created around them as Bella stood at his side, and a rippling weave of color formed around Con. Had Luca done that? He looked toward Sam and thought of extending the shield to him and the wrapping of color was instant. Luca blanked out for a half second, pulled in two directions, but shoved everything he had into helping shield his men. He had to work to bring the world back into focus. He needed more power, but was happy to open his eyes and see Sam fighting.
Sam joined Gabe’s battle with the demon, but even the two of them weren’t enough. Luca knew if the demon got a hold of his physical body and the revenant within, they’d lose this war.
He never imagined he’d have seen any of this mess before he was technically dead. He turned his focus toward his body, hoping that he could return to it before the last of his strength faded. Had he damaged his soul by using all that power? What would happen then? He had always thought of true death as a final stop rather than ghosts or lingering in a world he only enjoyed when he was with his guys. If he couldn’t be with them, he’d prefer a full stop. But he had to at least try to return. The body was his. He should be able to control it, right?
Luca’s revenant form fought with the wind binding it as if it could tear the walls down, causing him damage, as the wind tore at his flesh.
“Fucking hell!” Luca growled. “Do you know how hard I worked to make myself look that good? Don’t mess me up, you piece of shit!” He didn’t think anyone could hear him, except maybe Bella, but he stalked toward his body. Could he jump back in and shove the revenant out?
Molly’s shield protected him from the assault of the wind as the entire space filled with hurricane-force winds. He watched in horror as Con lost his battle for control over Wind, his face contorted in a scream, sound absent in the volume of the destruction.
Wind ripped apart the edge of the house. Giant tornados pummeled the sides of the building and came together as one big hurricane, with all of them in the eye.
Con changed. A layer of magic pooling over him, morphing him into a completely different being. Luca gaped, not knowing what to do and feeling like his soul was fading. The shield he’d formed around Con, battered and crumbling, he thought to yank strength from their ties as he could see the rippling colors of Con’s weave, but he’d have to leave the cocoon of Molly’s strength to reach for them.
The wind ripped Gabe and Sam away from Matthew and slammed them into the wall, where they remained immobile, both contorted with pain as though it worked to crush them.
Molly protected Luca and Bella as though her exoskeleton had become some impenetrable wall. Luca could see the power looping between them and wondered at it. It was a rolling tide of balance. It was incredible power.
“Go to him,” Bella said. “His soul is bound to the vampire, and you can pull strength from them. You are to them as Molly is to me.”
Luca gasped. He was a familiar? Was that why he suddenly had power and could see all these rainbows of magic?
The thing Con became was massive, a god of strength, fear, and power, a jinn of terrifying size and magic. Luca didn’t know how to get close. It slammed fists of wind fueled power into the sides of the building, shattering it as if all he needed was to be free. What would happen if he got out? Would Wind destroy everything? Where was Con? Was any of his will left in that cyclone of power at all or had Wind completely taken over him?
Vines crept up the side of the remaining walls, weaving themselves together and hardening into stone barriers that built like rock ivy. No matter how Wind battered at them, breaking them, they reformed, faster each time and harder to break, a true battle between earth and wind.
Luca glanced toward Seiran’s unmoving form inside the broken array. Was he doing that? There was no movement from inside the dirt mound.
Bella reached for Luca, pulling him back, touching him as if he had physical form. He stared down at her little face, awed by her power. She lifted a golden strand, thick and braided, and it tied her to Molly.
Did that mean Luca had something tying him to his guys, too? He turned his gaze to search the space between Con and Sam for a sign of their strand. Sam and Gabe writhed against the wall, bleeding, unable to move, even when the vines crawled around them, trying to form a barrier against the assault of the wind.
The chaotic surges of power made the connection between Sam and Con hard to find, but there it was, beneath the waves of wind-wrapped fire, a pulsing purple band. It looked like an angry wound. Was Wind trying to sever their tie?