On a Razor's Edge (Darkness #3)(9)

I marched forward, anxiety-ridden, knowing in another three minutes I’d make a boob of myself and probably embarrass Stefan. There was nothing for it, though. I just wasn’t getting this magic stuff. My spells never worked out how I planned, no matter what level of power I used. I could swing a sword decked in magic, but more often than not it blasted magic out the business end like some Sci-Fi movie.

I stopped about one hundred yards away from the mansion in the backyard. If I was supposed to use black, I needed a lot of room to work with. “Okay, let’s aim for something not too…cumbersome.”

“Oh, no, I would prefer the gamut, actually,” Dominicous said softly.

I turned to him with a new scowl. “What do you mean by, the gamut?”

“Give me a sampling, if you please. I want to see how you both cast, and then deal with your problems.”

I shook my head. “I don’t deal with the problems. Usually I run, and Charles and Adnan, or someone else that knows what they’re doing, deal with it.”

“Well, then, a little practice for Stefan and me.”

Stefan’s eyes left me for a second to take in Dominicous. He gave a nod that seemed to act as a bow.

I took a large breath. “Okay, here we go.”

I opened up to draw in the elements when I felt a presence beside me. Toa stood nearly arm-to-arm, staring at me across his body.

“I need to monitor how you control the power,” he said in reply to my raised eyebrows.

“So, I’m not great at this. A little room to maneuver would help…”

“Battle leaves you no room to maneuver.”

“Dealing with that stare is a battle all right…” I muttered grumpily.

Take two.

I drew a perfect balance of elements, mixing them around just so, and then paused. “Should I do black, or a different color?”

“Can you work in other powers?” Toa asked softly.

“Speaking so I can barely hear you doesn’t make you any less in my space. And yes, I can work in all other powers, but not very well.”

“The gamut,” I heard behind me.

I had no end of sighs for this whole experiment. “Brace yourselves.”

I tried to focus a binding spell at a dead tree in a lovely shade of blood red, my default. As expected, the tree burst at the base of the trunk, the top crashing down toward us.

“Run!” I yelled, already having started moving with the initial blast.

The procession scattered, a crowd having shown up when we got outside. Two guys got confused on which way to run and kinda shuffled back and forth with their arms out and their eyes wide while the branches fell on top of them.

“That’s why they aren’t in the Watch.” Charles chuckled as he climbed over the crackly dead limbs, trying to fish the two guys out.

“Okay, next.” I took a step down in power level, knowing it would show as green. I tried to work an informative spell, which could be left behind so someone treading in your footsteps would alert you with a vibration in your chest. Apparently. I could do it about half the time, and it gave me a shock so bad my teeth chattered.

I mentally called up the chants, not knowing the sounds but understanding the working of power—which seemed to amount to the same thing with me—and moved my hands as though I lay a blanket of feathers on the ground. The green smoke sparkled for a brief second before settling.

I took a giant step back, dragging Toa with me. “Sometimes it shoots fireworks. Pretty, but be ready with water because it’s been known to set things on fire.”

Nothing happened.

“Shit.” I braced myself.

Toa stepped forward and waved his foot over the spell. The resulting shock nearly fused my teeth together.

“Stop—it works, it works!” I gasped.

Toa turned back to me quizzically. I knew this because one eyebrow was a millimeter above the other, overlaying that familiar stare. “How long does it take to dissipate?”

“I don’t know. I’ll show you how I deal with it. Stand well back.”

Everyone that had ever shared a class with me jogged backward. Toa once again came to stand by my side. “Here we go, a magic attack block. Supposedly. This one never works. Darla tried to teach it to me to prove some sort of point. Joke was on her.”

A thin blue jet arced out from my body, first appearing like a mighty force field. The large, translucent blue shield started to contract the closer it got to ground zero, the blue becoming more and more solid, until finally, it covered the area in which the green spell crouched.

Nothing happened.

“Shit.”

“Boss, get up there, quick!” Charles urged, rocking forward on the balls of his feet.

Adnan jumped in front of me, his blade whirling a deep red, as a hive of insects burst from the ground, all a sharp, navy blue.

“They’re growers!” Adnan shouted, in his customary ninja attack position.

“It’s okay, I got this!” I pushed my palms forward. Purple oozing out in a thick glob, spilling across the ground. The magic rolled and boiled, growing in gooeyness to match the growing of the beetle-like insects. When the two collided—the insects had always started running back at me—the bugs got caught, steam rising from their many legs.

“Okay, Adnan, get in there,” Charles shouted, chopping at the bugs, twelve in all, caught in the sticky purple fly trap.