Missing powers, p.21
Missing Powers, page 21
“Maybe she had this spirit from the start. You have no reason to think that I had it or used it.”
“I know how you’ve been lately. You haven’t been yourself. And Marian wasn’t there when the sah was lost. You were.”
“You could have taken it. Or Harrison.” He shook his head. “Where is Harrison in all of this?”
“I just talked to him. He and Francesca said that the sah had to be passed through physical contact. Like you had with Kareem. And like you had when you passed the sah on to Marian this morning.”
Corvin shook his head, frowning.
“And like you passed the sah on to the gas station attendant on Monday on your way to the coven, so that he would make that phone call to Davyn to make it look like someone else was out to get him. Everybody would see you at the meeting and know that you had not been the one to make that call.”
Corvin made a noise of disbelief.
Reg took a couple of steps closer to Marian. “Are you the great wizard who bound Davyn?”
Marian glowered at her. Reg had never seen the woman exude such hate. Marian used to be jealous and resentful of Reg, but this was way beyond that.
“You! What are you doing here?”
“I came to see if it was really you who bound Davyn.”
“What I do is none of your business. Stay out of it, or you will regret it!”
“You must be very powerful to have bound such a powerful warlock. And to control that one.” Reg jerked her head toward Corvin.
Marian snorted. “As if anyone would be difficult for me to control. That one holds my powers and doesn’t even know how to use them. He’s like a child. Like you.”
Reg didn’t look at Corvin’s face to see how he felt about that. But she could feel the heat radiating off of him. Not the attraction that he emanated when he was trying to seduce Reg, but fury.
“How could any mortal challenge you?” Reg asked, putting as much admiration and subservience in her tone as possible. A fangirl. Make the sah think that she was cowed by his power, impressed by what he had done. Put him off guard.
“No mortal could,” Marian replied, her eyes alight. “You are right.”
“Look at what we did. We tried to bind you, and yet, here you are. A thousand years? Francesca could not even bind you for a thousand days!”
“I will gain back all that I lost and more. Stupid humans, thinking that you can take down one such as I!”
Reg wanted to challenge this statement, reminding him of all of the ancient gods who were no more. Somehow, humanity had wiped them out over the centuries. She didn’t know how many immortals were left, but it seemed to be a pretty limited population. Maybe even more limited than the sirens.
“And Davyn… what is this place you have him trapped in? Is it the underworld?”
Reg was moving closer to Marian, and she could feel Corvin following close behind her and off to the side. Drifting closer, as if he only wanted to hear all of what was being said, mildly curious about the conversation.
“The underworld,” Marian repeated. Her face looked thoughtful.
“At first, I thought it was,” Reg said, “but then I realized… there was no fire.”
“No fire?”
Reg nodded eagerly. “Hades, hell, whatever you call it—there are always flames. It’s full of fire and brimstone to torment the souls who are sent there. But where Davyn is… I didn’t see any flames.”
“There are flames,” Marian countered.
Reg was pulled into the void. She could feel Davyn close by. His strength was beginning to fail. She didn’t know if his body was actually in that place or if it was somewhere else, but whether the damage had been done to his body or his soul, lingering there for days was not doing him any good. Reg reached out, trying to touch his consciousness with hers. They knew each other. He should be able to hear or sense her when she tried to touch his mind.
The edges of the world began to burn.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Reg’s heart thumped faster as the fire began to close in on them. Leaping, roaring flames. They would have been intimidating to anyone in real life. And in the void, in the sharp darkness, they quickly overcame the icy coldness and warmed Reg to a temperature that would have made her sweat in real life. Or would have made other people sweat.
Other people who were not firecasters.
“It’s burning!” She wasn’t sure whether she shouted the words out loud or just imagined that she did. Her voice wouldn’t carry in the void. She could feel Davyn being warmed and strengthened by the flames. It was not well known in the community that he was a firecaster. Reg knew, of course, because he had identified her as a firecaster and trained her. He had other powers and was the leader of the coven, and that was what people knew him for. Marian must not know or had not allowed the Witch Doctor to access that information. Corvin had probably not had any reason to think about it.
Are you okay? Reg sent the thought to Davyn, trying to keep it from everyone else.
The fire… is good.
She was glad to hear his response in her head. He was still there, still fighting against the power that held him there.
Wait until you are strong, she told him.
She didn’t want to alert the Witch Doctor that what he was doing was counterproductive to his goal. He wasn’t tormenting Davyn by filling the void with fire. He was giving him more strength and focus.
Reg tried to pull herself back out of that world, back to where she was talking with Marian and Corvin in the glade. It was difficult to focus on the cool, pleasant glade when the fire was calling to her. She took a few deep breaths, drawing in as much strength from the fire as she could, and then tried again.
She snapped back into place in the clearing in the woods. “You’re hurting him,” she protested to Marian. “You can’t do that! Don’t burn him. He’s suffering! Please put out the fire.”
She could feel Corvin’s amusement over her ploy and hoped he didn’t give it away to Marian and the Witch Doctor’s sah. But Marian was paying no attention to Corvin. The sah had already discounted him as being unworthy, unable to exercise the Witch Doctor’s powers he held. Instead, with a look of enjoyment on Marian’s face, the Witch Doctor turned up the heat even further in the void where Davyn was struggling and growing in strength. She could sense Davyn from the mortal plane now instead of having to go into the void to find him. He was getting stronger and would be able to break the bonds that held him there before too long.
Ah. She felt the thought from Corvin. I can feel him now.
Reg took a few deep breaths and then, focusing on Davyn and his struggles, issued a clear call. Davyn Smithy. Come to me.
Davyn drew strength from the fire, letting it feed his own inner fire and revive him. He had been growing so weak, but the appearance of fire in the void had been a boon. He could sense more around him than he had been able to since he was brought there. He could sense not only the darkness of the place he was bound, but also the physical world around him. The glade where he meditated and offered sacrifices. The people who were there, shining like beacons. Or in the case of one of them, swirling in inky blackness.
Come to me.
He heard Reg’s call and felt the tug on his consciousness. She was there, and if the two of them had been strengthened enough by the fire, he might be able to break free of the bonds that held him and go to her. He took in deep drags of the fire, as if inhaling oxygen deep into his lungs, and let the strength expand throughout him.
For a few long seconds, Reg could feel the pull of the spell she cast and the resistance of the power holding Davyn bound. She poured more strength into it, drawing on the fire burning in the void. And then Davyn tore loose. She felt the kaleidoscope of color and sensation as he was pulled toward her. And then he was there, in the mortal plane. Davyn made a loud grunt as he landed on the ground, and a heap of clothing and warlock was sprawled on the grass of the clearing in front of her. It was a good thing he hadn’t dropped right on top of the stone altar. That could have hurt.
Davyn scrambled as quickly as he could to his feet.
“Reg.” He put his hand on her arm and squeezed. “Thank you!”
Reg nodded and indicated Marian. “He’s in there, now. We need to do something. What can we do?”
Davyn looked at Marian’s furious face, his eyes popping in comical surprise. “What is it?” he demanded.
“The Witch Doctor. One piece of him. He’s the one who bound you. But I don’t know what to do and how to prevent him from doing more damage. What can we do?”
“I can do this,” Corvin said boldly. He reached out and grabbed Marian by the arm.
“Don’t!” Reg warned, but it was too late. He already had his hand on her.
Marian’s face froze in an expression of shock and surprise. And Corvin again changed from the warlock she was familiar with to the angry, irritable version that she had put up with for the past few weeks.
“You think you can fool me?” he roared. “Overcome me?” He swept his arm across, knocking Davyn to the ground with his unexpected blow. “You think you can undo what I have done?”
Reg watched him, staying out of reach. But she knew that his power would extend much farther than his physical reach. And now that the sah was back in Corvin, it had access to the Witch Doctor’s powers. With knowledge of how to use them.
“What do we do?” she asked Davyn. “There must be something we can do to stop him.”
Davyn got to his feet again, clearly shaken. After being in the void for days, his reactions seemed slow, his brain lagging as he tried to get back up to speed on what was going on in the mortal world.
“We work together,” he said, but didn’t come up with a game plan. Marian was looking around at everything, clearly out of her depth. Maybe with the sah now gone, she didn’t even remember how she had ended up there.
Corvin surveyed Reg coldly. “You cannot take him from me. That one may not have had the power to let me hold him,” he jerked his head in Marian’s direction. Then he smoothed his hand down his front. “But this one does.”
“There is no point in you holding Davyn anywhere. Why would you even bother? What does the leadership of a little coven matter to you?” Reg tried to appeal to his ego.
“This little coven,” Corvin said, his face twisted into a snarl, “was one of the first ever established in the new world. One of the longest-surviving covens in the history of this planet. It has far greater importance and influence than you could ever imagine.”
Reg rolled her eyes. “A bunch of old guys getting together to pray and dance around? That’s the most important thing in the world for you to tackle?”
Corvin glared. “I have to start somewhere. In order to gain in power, I must move one step at a time, gaining a foothold with every new project I tackle.” His nostrils flared, and he looked down at Reg. “Something that you would know nothing about.”
“Oooh,” Reg taunted back. She was stung, but she knew it wasn’t really Corvin who was speaking to her and that she had, in fact, been gaining in power since she had arrived in Black Sands. Far more than she had ever expected to. She had gone from a drifting con artist with barely a penny to her name to having a home, a familiar, and wealth she had never imagined and had no idea what to do with. And the gifts which she had previously thought were attributable to coincidence, cold reading, and mental illness had flourished in the magical community. She had been acknowledged as powerful by several different practitioners and magical species, something that she could never have imagined. “Is that your brag? That you’re more powerful than me?” She snickered. “More powerful than a psychic?”
“You will not stand in my way.” He stepped toward Reg, his body drawn up to its full height to be as intimidating as possible. “I will not allow you to unwind what I have achieved. I will become as powerful again as I once was. Even greater.”
Reg shrugged with one shoulder. “Big man.” She yawned. “Why don’t you get elected by the warlocks in a fair and square race against Davyn? Removing him from the picture makes it obvious that… you’re afraid of him. You don’t think you have what it takes to get elected on your own merit. The only way for you to get elected is to eliminate the competition first.”
“That is a lie! This warlock is nothing compared to me.”
Davyn faced Corvin straight on, not letting himself show any fear. “Reg is right. It’s obvious you can’t win the election on your own merits.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Corvin’s hand flashed toward Davyn as if he were going to hit him. Davyn moved at the same time, seemingly much slower, but he managed to raise a wall of fire between them, which so startled Corvin that he stepped back to avoid contact with it. Reg could feel the heat pouring off of the flames. It wasn’t any hallucination or optical illusion. It was a real fire, capable of burning Corvin to a crisp. And it called to Reg.
Corvin raised both hands and was able to dampen the flames a little. But he couldn’t put it out like Davyn or Reg could. Davyn grinned at Reg, enjoying himself despite the danger. After being bound by Corvin and the sah, he relished the opportunity to retaliate.
Corvin dismissed the danger from Davyn with a flick of his wrist, an unseen force hitting Davyn and knocking him to the ground. He faced Reg, his pupils dilating wide.
“Do you think you are able to fight me? Both of you together could do nothing. The whole coven together couldn’t do anything to harm me.”
He stepped closer to Reg and grabbed her with both hands, demonstrating his physical prowess.
“You are nothing, witch. Do you hear me?”
Reg tried to pull away from him, but didn’t have the strength. But her physical strength was not her only weapon. She pushed back against Corvin with her mind. She had fought him before. She was just as eager as he was to prove that she was not the weaker. He had already expended energy in starting the fire in the netherworld and in trying to keep Davyn there. Now he had to fight against Davyn and his fire. And against Reg and hers. And Marian… well, Marian wasn’t going to be any help. Reg had to admit that. They would need to protect her. To make sure that the sah couldn’t get back to her again.
“Stay back,” she warned Marian. “No matter what he tells you, don’t do what he says.”
Marian nodded, wide-eyed. She took a few paces back from them. Not far enough, Reg didn’t think. But it was a start.
Corvin took no notice of this exchange. He stared into Reg’s eyes, his gaze hard and unwavering. Like he could see right into her soul. Reg did her best to shut him out. The shared experiences the two of them had been through together made it impossible to keep the connection completely closed. She tried to throw up a psychic shield and to reflect some of his energy and aggression back to him. She had found it a very effective move when battling an opponent with stronger gifts.
“You are mine,” Corvin told her, pushing back. Reg tried to keep her focus. The smell of roses floated up to her nostrils, and she knew he was trying to use his charms to seduce her. If he managed it, she would be unable to stop him from anything. She would quite happily nestle in his arms and do whatever he asked her to.
“Do you really think that’s going to work?” Reg demanded.
He smiled, clearly feeling that it was only a matter of time until Reg gave in. But Reg was in the open air, not inside where the pheromones could build up and overcome her. She swept a blast of fire through the air to purify it. Everyone took a step back, eyes wide, even Davyn. Reg laughed.
“You think you can charm me?” Reg asked, “that’s not going to work today.”
He switched tactics and, instead of trying to entrance her with his charms, he wrenched open the door to her mind, making Reg gasp with the violence and reel back, trying to avoid him reading her or taking control. She could feel the sah, separate from Corvin’s mind, strong, gathering to it the Witch Doctor’s powers that had been little used since Corvin had absorbed them.
“No!” Reg tried to push back, but he was too strong. Even stronger than the force she had fought in the void when she had tried to call Davyn back the first time. He had an iron will, not willing to budge an inch. He would overcome her. She could feel Davyn trying to help her, feeding her fire with his in an effort to overbalance the Witch Doctor’s power.
But Reg’s grip was slipping. She wouldn’t last long. She tried to call on Corvin’s power as well. She had been able to channel his strength in the past. Corvin was still there; maybe he could still help give her his strength, draining his own, until she was strong enough to overcome the Witch Doctor’s sah.
But she couldn’t seem to reach Corvin. He was there, but he was blocked from helping her. Or he was enjoying the battle, the feeling of overcoming Reg. It was, after all, what he had wanted since he’d first met her.
Reg was losing ground. She tried to think of everything she could do to strengthen herself or take from his power. She was momentarily distracted by the rising cry of the sirens. Norma Jean and the other siren sisters were going wild, shrieking to her, making it almost impossible to think in an already impossible situation.
“Take him. Mark him. He is yours!”
Reg shook her head, irritated. It was like being menaced by a mosquito when playing a well-matched game of tug-of-war.
I can’t right now, she told the voices in her head. I’m sort of busy!
What kind of mother would encourage her to pursue a romantic relationship—or a fine meal—or a combination of the two when she was fighting for her life?
But as she continued to lose ground to the Witch Doctor, her mind started to clear, and she began to see what the siren voices were trying to tell her. The voices and music created pictures that flowed into her mind. She started to see how it all worked. She stepped closer to Corvin, and he didn’t object, thinking that she was doing want he wanted her to. Getting closer and succumbing to him. Reg reached out to him, touching his arms and shoulders, running her hands over his muscles as if she had been ensorcelled and wanted nothing more than to join with him.
