Angel Magic, page 9
part #2 of Sirangel Series
I helped him brace his shoulder with his shirt and he took my hand and turned to face me. “I’m glad you were here with me for my first shift. I wouldn’t have wanted to share it with anyone else.”
“Me too.” Though we were nearly strangers, it felt like we’d known each other for a lifetime. I squeezed his hand. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before it shows up.”
He nodded curtly and led me away by the hand, away from whatever was coming and toward the east, where we’d find the water we were both apparently intrinsically connected to. The water that called to us both.
11
We made our way toward the water in companionable silence until the tear at the point where my wing met my left shoulder blade ached so terribly that I began considering whether I should try to shift too. Perhaps there was nothing beyond the wings on land and the tail in the water, but it might be worth trying.
Quinn walked with a slight limp, but it didn’t seem to slow him down. He squeezed my hand before he finally broke the silence. “I’ve been thinking, I should probably take you back to the Menagerie.”
“Me? And you?”
“Well, I’d like it if I could stay there with you, especially since now I have no doubt I’m a shifter.”
The thought of stuffing Quinn, who was half a head taller than me and far bigger and muscular, into the fairies’ tree stump home made me smile. Fianna would throw a fit at having another “giant” invade their home.
“We can’t go back to Uncle Irving’s,” Quinn said, “though it would be my preference. Dimorelli, and whoever else might be looking for us, will check there.”
“They definitely will.”
“And there’s nowhere else I can think of where we’d be safe.”
A pang of longing wrenched through me as I wished we could retreat to my ocean home. But no, Mulunu had made it clear it was my home no longer. No matter what my heart desired, neither I nor Quinn would be welcome there.
“We can’t fight this battle on our own,” he went on to say. “We’re not strong enough yet.” Regret tinged his words.
“I’m sure you’ll soon become strong enough to fight our enemies.”
“And you? Do you not believe the same of yourself?”
Sir Lancelot’s words came back to me. I should always believe the best of myself. “I try to,” I finally said, and it was true. “Though you should have seen my training while I was at the Menagerie. Let me put it this way: I’m pretty sure no one ever came out of training the way I did. Egan, my teacher, pretended I was improving, but when he didn’t think I was looking I’d catch his shock at my lack of progress. It was bad, really bad.”
“I don’t believe you could be bad at anything.”
I chortled. “Then just wait and see. Hey, do you smell that?”
He tilted his face into the air and sniffed. His eyes widened as he turned to me. “It’s the ocean!”
I nodded happily. “It is indeed. I wondered if you might be able to pick up on that. Your new form … do you know what it is?”
“No. I saw scales and paws … and it felt supremely weird. But no … I don’t suppose I know what I was. Please tell me.”
“I’ve never been an expert in much of anything, but if you want my best guess, I’d say you’re some kind of sea dragon … bear … creature.”
Quinn came to an abrupt halt. “What?”
“I’m not really sure, Quinn, I’ve never heard of or seen anything like it before. But I’m so underqualified to judge anything, it’s a bit ridiculous. You had fins and scales like a fish, but a snout, tail, and spikes and other stuff like a dragon, and you were otherwise built a bit like a bear.” I shrugged apologetically. “I don’t know what you were, but it was pretty cool.”
I couldn’t tell what he was thinking as he stared at me so intently I wondered if he was looking through me.
“You are a hybrid,” I added. “Irving said you were one of a kind, just like me, so we can’t expect you to look like something common. Maybe you’re the first mer … dragon … bear or whatever.” I smiled but he only continued to stare at me. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” He started walking again, pulling me along by the hand, but this time his hold was limp against mine. “We have to reach the water and then find our way to the Menagerie before whatever it is we felt reaches us.”
I nodded, but Quinn’s mood had changed abruptly. Did he not like being a dragonmerbear? Just as I hadn’t enjoyed being labeled a sirangel at the start?
His attention fixed firmly ahead across the hills to where the ocean must lie, despite his limp he picked up the pace. I hurried to keep up and decided to allow him some silence to figure out whatever was going on within him. Surely, shifting for the first time was as big of a deal as it got.
Then I was suddenly drawn to a complete stop, halting him next to me. I dropped his hand and turned to face the opposite direction.
“What is it?” he asked, voice urgent as if he already felt what I did.
“We don’t have time to reach the water.” I sounded monotone, almost robotic, even to my own ears. “The witch is already here. She’ll be popping above that hill in the next few seconds.”
Quinn didn’t waste time asking how I knew or who I was referring to. He probably already knew.
“Then we fight,” he said, sinking into his legs and stepping half in front of me to shield my body.
“There’s only one way to fight Naomi Nettles, and that’s with magic.”
“You have magic.” His whisper was urgent.
“I do.” Again, my voice sounded foreign to my own ears; it was confident and strong—all that I wasn’t. I relaxed into myself as if I knew what to do, and confronting the witch, who’d kidnapped and delivered me to an evil vampire, was no big deal.
Finally, I was beginning to understand what Nessa repeated all the time. “Fake it till you make it, silly.” Well, I was either going to fake it or make it in the next few moments.
Naomi Nettles, with her familiar perched atop her shoulder, crested the hill. A wicked smile spread across her blood red lips, the precise tone as the rest of her ensemble, made for sitting at fancy tea parties, not traipsing across hills in the middle of nowhere.
But Naomi the witch was perfectly prepared for what would come next.
I just hoped that somehow, by some miracle, so was I, because there was no way I was going back to Dimorelli’s dungeon, and I’d die before I let her take Quinn there.
I sank into a defensive stance that matched Quinn’s even though the only fighting that would make any difference would stem from a place beyond my body.
“Hello, darlings,” Naomi called ahead, her voice clear and precise, her greed and hunger obvious in the way her light eyes took us in as if we were treasure and she had found us at long last.
Quinn growled and I narrowed my eyes at the witch. “What are you doing here?” I called back.
“Oh, just looking for you.”
“How lucky. I’ve been looking for you too.” The bluster didn’t seem like it could be mine, nor could the wicked smile that curved across my lips. “You kidnapped me when you shouldn’t have even been able to get onto the MCA campus. It should have been impossible.”
Her red lips framed her bright teeth. “I don’t believe in the word ‘impossible.’ I’m a witch.”
I didn’t think I was a witch, though I had magic that should have only belonged to witches and wizards—mages—but I agreed with her on that one point. “Nothing is impossible for me. Nor for Quinn.”
Surprise jerked him back, but he didn’t say anything.
“Explain yourself,” I commanded, as if I were actually in charge of the situation and Naomi Nettles and her cat Petunia couldn’t make me do anything.
She sneered, stroked her cat’s back, and closed the distance between us. “I explain myself to no one, especially not insignificant newbies like you.”
“If we’re so ‘insignificant,’ why are you here?”
“Because your power isn’t. And now that Antonio Dimorelli has been foolish enough to let you go, you’re mine.” Petunia meowed her agreement and pinned eyes as brilliant as emeralds on me, and then on Quinn.
“Witches have always suffered from delusions of grandeur,” Quinn growled. “You especially.”
“Oh, Irv didn’t think so. Where’s your sweet uncle now, Quinny boy?”
Irving hadn’t been “sweet,” but that surely wasn’t what caused a ferocious rumble to rip from Quinn’s throat. In seconds, he cut the remaining distance between him and the witch and pounced on her, shattering her veneer of sophistication.
Naomi bared her teeth in a gesture as vicious as any animal’s. She tried to sidestep Quinn’s attack and failed. Petunia leapt out of her arms and Quinn smashed into her, taking her to the ground, knocking the breath from her in a startled whoosh.
“Hm, I see you’ve had your first shift, Quinny boy. Your power has increased … just in time.” Despite the fact that Quinn had her pinned, she flashed a predatory smile.
It made me nervous.
I rushed toward them, hands twitching and at the ready to intervene as I’d done when Naomi had attacked Fianna.
But as I reached them, a flash of emerald green light sparked across her prone body, reaching out into Quinn, who began to shake and spasm immediately—so much like he’d done when the goblins had electrified his body.
As if he were suspended in the air by invisible hands, he arched backward, his eyes unfocused, staring up into the bright blue of the afternoon sky, his legs clenched as rigid as a tree trunk.
I didn’t dare touch him. I sidestepped him and ducked to reach for Naomi. I’d pierced her green glow of magic once before. Fianna had said it should have killed me, or injured me at the least, but I’d felt nothing as I’d interrupted the flow of her magic.
I was reaching out to do the same when I sensed an animal’s gaze upon me. Petunia.
The cat stared at me, her face drawn into the lines of menace more often seen on her bigger cousins. She was about to attack and tear me to pieces—or however much of that she could manage for her size.
Petunia coiled with readiness, pushed off her back legs and flew at me, teeth opening wide, a deadly hiss escaping from between them.
I reached both hands up to block her and sensed the exact moment that I realized my mistake. But it was too late to remedy it.
I spun back toward Naomi as Petunia sank her teeth into one of my forearms. Quinn remained rigid, possessed by the throes of her magic, but her eyes were on me—and they were wicked … and pleased.
One slender-fingered hand, manicured to match the blood red of her lips and dress, kept its hold on Quinn. The other slid along the ground toward me.
I flung the cat away with a hard jerk of my forearm. Petunia went flying, blood dripping from my bare arm.
Naomi opened and spread the fingers of both hands wide, then brought them closed in a flicker of movement.
And just like that, Quinn and I, who’d almost reached the ocean’s water, and who’d barely tasted freedom, disappeared from the hillside.
I closed my eyes against the disturbing sensation of traveling through space, then landed with a hard thud on an elegant rug.
The grass of the hills was entirely gone.
12
Quinn landed a second later on the same fine rug I lay on, the one that seemed remarkably out of place as the backdrop for my second kidnapping in as many days. He appeared to fall out of the ceiling above me; he plummeted, arms and legs windmilling in an attempt to avoid the drop, falling so hard he bounced against the hardwood floor beneath the rug. He grunted loudly, one cheek pressed against the woven rug, arms and legs folded at awkward angles against his body. He groaned, long and prolonged, before he pushed up to his elbows. His healing right shoulder collapsed and he adjusted his weight entirely onto his left arm, then swiveled searching for me.
The moment his gaze located me at his other side, he sighed in relief and flopped back down in exhaustion, finally free of the agony caused by Naomi’s magic. He stared at me with hazy eyes, blinking slowly, as if he were using more strength than he had to remain in his body.
“Where’s the witch?” Even his words were slurred.
“Right there.” I motioned to a high-backed leather armchair on the opposite side of the room, where the witch sat, legs crossed, Petunia nestled on her lap. Though the cat’s body mimicked resting, her brilliant green eyes swept across Quinn and me like we were mice she had nefarious plans for.
Pursing his lips to avoid the groan that I’m sure would’ve otherwise slipped out, Quinn pushed up onto his left arm and awkwardly turned so he was facing front and sitting. I expected him to shout or threaten Naomi, but he scooted entirely against me, his side flush against my own, his left leg only dragging slightly, which was good. His first shift appeared to have instigated his rapid healing, just as we’d hoped.
Quinn stared at Naomi while I stared at him.
“I see your separation has done nothing to interfere with this mysterious connection the two of you possess,” Naomi said cordially, as if we were house guests instead of prisoners. “It is quite peculiar. Have you made sense of it yet?”
“What?” Quinn said, nowhere near as pleasant as Naomi. “When we were being tortured in Antonio Dimorelli’s dungeon, do you mean? Did you imagine we had a nice little chat about it then?”
Naomi smiled pleasantly. “There was always the chance.” Had I not known her, I might have been convinced that she was an ordinary woman. “It was worth asking.”
Quinn scowled at her, the expression more menacing than usual with his hair ventured in every direction, and his eyes glazed with the remnants of pain and suffering. Add to that his physique that suggested strength despite its recent abuse, and a thick beard, and Quinn looked like someone a reasonable person would be frightened of.
Of course, Naomi Nettles was no ordinary woman. I doubted she was even an ordinary witch.
She began petting Petunia, whose eyes rolled up in her head as she purred. “You’ve shifted.” Naomi’s eyes trailed up and down Quinn’s body, alight with interest. “What do you shift into?”
“I thought you knew everything about me. Uncle Irving told you I was a hybrid shifter before he even told me.” Quinn didn’t quite manage to keep the sting from his voice.
“He sure did, sweet Irv, but he never did tell me what kind of hybrid you were.”
Quinn smiled tightly. “Then you can plan on taking that wonder to your grave.”
Naomi tilted her head to one side, then the other, as she studied Quinn. She then extended her attention to me. “Hmm. Perhaps, but perhaps not. I can be extremely persuasive. Ask Irving, he’ll tell you.”
Quinn’s eyes lit in fury “I can’t ask Uncle Irving anything. And you’re to blame.”
“Me? Why should you blame me?” She brought a prim hand to her chest atop the deep V-neck cut of her blood-red dress.
“Because you’ve been trouble since the day I met you. You came to Uncle Irving’s house to sniff around Selene the moment you found out about her. Then you kidnapped her and gave her over to Dimorelli. Who knows what else you did behind the scenes that we don’t yet know about? I don’t understand why Uncle Irving ever trusted you. He’s dead now because of that trust.”
Naomi’s hand slid down onto her cat, who jumped at the harsh touch. “What do you mean Irving’s dead?”
“What do you think I mean? Damn meddling witch, never caring how what you do affects anybody else.”
Her mouth pressed into a single, rigid line. “I never wanted Irv dead. While you were outside with him, I was inside fighting to keep the Voice from tearing down his house.”
Quinn met the challenge in her face without hiding the suspicion from his. “You might not have been the one to tear his life force from his body, but you were part of the problem. You always were. How else do you explain that you took Selene and delivered her to someone intent on killing her?”
Naomi crossed her legs in the opposite direction and scanned the rest of the elegant room, decorated with sophisticated accents and stunning landscape paintings. I guessed this was her home, or one of them at the least. A witch so intent on collecting power and influence might have properties scattered across the world.
“I didn’t take Selene because I wanted to,” she said.
“What?” I asked incredulously. “You were trying to kill Fianna so you could take me with you and steal my power. And just now out in the fields, you spoke of taking my power again.”
The witch scoffed and flipped a hand in the air as if that alone invalidated my argument. “I didn’t mean then. I meant when I delivered you to Antonio.”
“How endearing that you have to specify your kidnapping attempts,” Quinn said. “And how lovely that you’re on a first name basis with the vampire who’s been torturing me for two months, and who was intent on hurting Selene too.”
I took Quinn’s hand. He’d endured such torment. Would it not end?
“Why did you take me to Dimorelli?” I asked. “Why didn’t you just keep me for yourself if that’s what you wanted?”
We all waited as a grandfather clock struck eleven long, mournful chords from the wall behind Naomi. The night beyond the two windows in the sitting room was in complete opposition to the sunny skies above the grassy hills that we’d left only minutes before.
“You both assume that I’m all evil.” Naomi’s words were so soft that I would have believed her vulnerable if I hadn’t known her better. “But the world isn’t black and white, especially not the magical world. Only the naïve believe someone is all bad … or all good.” Those light eyes of hers burned into mine. “Every person alive possesses a bit of both sides.”
