Jonas (Darkness #7)(37)

I panted with fatigue. One of the mages in the corner passed out. Energy was scarce, even for Nathanial. The spells got more brutal. Wilder. More vicious.

Tim stood up and wobbled next to Stefan. Jameson and Jonas screamed and clutched at their heads, both having been hit with a spell I couldn’t unravel in time. Charles tried to work another spell, pushed back with the effort. The spell scalded his shoulders.

We couldn’t even get to him to push him over the ledge. We couldn’t reach him, and I was no match.

I focused on a spell bubbling in front of Nathanial. I knew that mix of fire and earth. I knew Nathanial’s love of acid.

He was about to kill everyone in this room, including his own people, and there was no way I could alter the spell to make it benign. I’d learned his magic, but he’d learned my tricks. He’d closed that vulnerability susceptible to my inverted magic.

“Get out! All of you!” I screamed.

“You see my spell, human?” That cold grin was aimed directly for me. Tim groaned and sank to the ground. Stefan’s arms swirled with magic as he fought a spell. As he fought the pain. “What a lovely prize you would’ve been. Better-trained than I expected. But if you blow up this spell—why do Americans love blowing things up, I wonder—your explosion will simply kill the last mages connected to me as I erect my shield. Checkmate.”

“Get out, Stefan, please!” I begged.

“Then what, love?” he asked with strain in his voice as he staggered. “With our last mage gone, who can stop him?”

“Toa!” I said with tears in my eyes. I worked at that spell as Nathanial finished it. As he held it in front of him for me to stare at in wonder. He was showing me how far above me he was. Ever the showman.

In desperation I tried to tweak it. Mess with it. But it was fortified and booby-trapped, just as Nathanial had said. Any heavy-handed magical attempt would blow it. We’d all still die, because I barely had anything left. I wouldn’t be able to shield.

We’d all die.

I watched as that last fiber of the spell moved toward its home. The trigger.

A crack sounded behind us. Nathanial screamed and reached for his shoulder. The spell wobbled. A moment later a knife blossomed in the mage’s throat. Another knife hit his eye and sank in deep.

The trigger still moved in as Nathanial slumped back against the wall.

“That spell is going to trigger!” I screamed. I ran forward, but Stefan was already there, Jonas and Jameson staggering after. Clenching their jaws against the pain, the three pushed through as a unit, forcing each other on. With a guttural yell, and braced by his two Watch Commanders, Stefan was pushed around that spell and at the slumping mage. He picked up the other man in a huge show of strength and tossed him out of the window.

I summoned every reserve I had and devised the equivalent of magical wind to blow that fog of spell out after him, pushing it out into the empty space over the battlefield as far as I could. The spell, 99.5% complete, and volatile because of it, exploded as its maker lost control of his magic.

As Nathanial fell, the explosion was directed skyward and out, raking down the sides of the building and punching at my weakening shield.

I braced and monitored my energy. I chopped off the links of everyone but Paulie and Birdie, the two strongest, and then I cut them off, too, as Nathanial’s spell finally drifted away.

Panting, exhausted, I glanced around with wide eyes. Emmy stood at the back wall, straight-backed but visibly shaking. Her face was as pale as death. A whip dangled from a hand. Her other hand hovered next to her belt of knives. “I did it.”

I lost sight of her as Stefan, once again, crushed me to his chest. We swayed together. I felt two hands come in to steady us—Paulie and Charles. “Jesus that guy was something.”

“Someone needs to make sure he’s dead.” I buried my face into Stefan’s chest.

“Oh yeah. He’s dead. And his guys are—“ Charles cut off as a huge explosion rocked the foundation.

“Oh no.”

Everyone turned to a wide-eyed Emmy. Another explosion shook the building.

“He set traps. He was always setting traps. Without his magic to fuel the—“ Another explosion. The building groaned ominously.

“Who cares why! Let’s get the hell out of here!” Charles started sprinting for the door. Stefan pushed me in front of him.

We filed out as though the devil was on our heels. Another explosion and something structural popped. Wood squealed. Somewhere it sounded like crumbling stone.

“That guy was insane!” I yelled as I burst through the door into the main second-story hall. My legs shook under me. My energy was flagging badly.

Stefan picked me up and threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. Only Emmy was faster than him. Jonas and the others were right behind, shifters included. Only Tim and Ann had had the strength and power to turn back into their animal form. The rest wobbled and staggered as fast as they could.

We took the stairs in a mad flight and fought a mass exodus as the building shifted. The floor dropped to our left: just sank down into the depths below. A gaping hole exposed moldy stone.

“Faster!” Emmy urged. “The whole place is going down. They didn’t update the foundation when they re-did the living quarters.”

A rumble tossed us to the side. Stefan grabbed a hold of me tighter and bounced off the wall. I felt another hand on my back that could’ve been Charles or Jameson.