Marked By Magic by Christa Wick

Chapter Twenty-Five

"Almost there,"Cade shouted as the tactical van passed the NY Clan's second sniper's nest.

Mt. Marcy's peak swung into view, the sight threatening to choke Iris with a relief she couldn't afford to express. The spell she and Michelle were singing had to continue until the van was parked inside one of the mountain's entrances.

Feeling Michelle's energy hesitate, Iris gave a little squeeze and started chanting louder. Michelle squeezed back and increased her own volume. More than an hour had passed since they left the mansion outside Gibley. They had taken exactly three breaks to rest their voice, each timed twenty minutes apart and lasting exactly three minutes or less.

Careful to maintain five points of contact, the women sat cross-legged on the van's floor, holding hands, their knees touching, and their heads bent. As with Tavi's discovery of the spell to implant the pearl, the ritual and words used in the van had been lost to time.

It was designed to avoid anyone successfully casting for their location, but with the added element of encouraging anyone who could sense magic to look away without realizing it.

"Entrance coming up," Tanner said from where he sat in the front passenger seat, both hands wrapped around the double-barrel, pump-action shotgun he had taken from the corpse of a Hunter in Gibley.

Curled against a bench seat with a blanket around him, his face a ball of hurt and rejection after being sent away from Denver and Esme a second time, Oscar lifted his head. Tanner must have caught the movement or sensed it, because he called out.

"Hear that, cub? You're almost back with your friends."

Oscar shook his head, then buried his face in the blanket, his hands curling around its edges in tight fists.

Iris's heart ached for him, but the boy would be safer once they reached the mountain's interior. He was also absolutely crucial to the mission. Without him and Michelle, Iris would not be able to open the door to the crystal cell that held Camille's inert body.

Everyone in the van had their part to play. Cade and Tanner provided security. Michelle was chosen for the pitch of her voice and the fact that she was an experienced vocalist after all the years of church choir her abusive grandmother had put her through.

Oscar was there because of the crystals embedded along his spine—just as Esme's touch had helped Iris open the door the first time.

Strapped to her chest, Iris carried the same satchel that had held the hearts of Zeke and Thane. Inside were the crystals that had ringed Abby's stone altar.

Remorse shot through her at the thought of the crystals she possessed. Their removal had triggered an immediate decline in Esme, something the witch had warned them would happen.

Denver's protests against the plan did nothing but provoke the witch's tears. There simply was no other option and time was almost out for everyone. The crystals—placed in a semicircle in front of the cell door with their resonance magnified by the same but smaller group of crystals along Oscar's spine and those within Camille—would open a door otherwise immovable not from its weight but from an enduring magic embedded within its construction.

"What do we do when we get the door open?" Tanner asked as the vehicle came to a stop inside the cave and the chanting stopped.

"There are seven stones inside Camille," Iris answered. "Just like there are seven stones inside this bag and seven within…"

Pausing, she looked at Oscar.

"Seven inside of me," he finished, tears swimming in his wounded gaze. "Three sevens, twenty-one, two and one, three. Three sevens, twenty-one—"

"Yes, little love," Michelle said, getting up from the van's floor to cradle the boy in her arms, letting him keep one of the blankets.

Tanner helped her out of the van then tried to take the cub. Michelle waved her mate back as Oscar snarled, his perfectly even top row of teeth beginning to sharpen and elongate.

"It's okay. He's lighter than he looks."

Leading the way, Cade grumbled as they moved through the mountain. "If this doesn't work, we've wasted hours we could have helped in fortifying the mansion and left it undermanned."

"It would still be undermanned if we were there. And Tavi and Philia have been working on their battle magic," Iris soothed as Mason, Fray's pack leader, rushed toward them with a squad of heavily-armed wolves in his wake.

"I don't care what Denver sent you here to do," Mason yelled. "You need to help guard the entrances! There are more Hunters in the woods than during the last attack when we lost so many."

"You!" Mason jabbed a bossy finger at Tanner, but Cade grabbed it and held on

"This last week has gone to your head, Mason," he warned, before releasing the offending finger. "In Denver's absence, I am Clan leader here. Take your witches skilled in battle magic and have them collapse every entrance other than the Sliver and Lesser North Face."

Seeing further protest budding in the pout of Mason's lips, Cade slammed the wolf against the side of the passage.

"You will also gather the children and the most vulnerable among our numbers in the library with guards to protect them, then position the rest of your wolves and the battle witches at the two open entrances."

Cade's voice showed no strain as he continued to pin Mason against the wall with one hand, the man's legs dangling a foot above the ground. "Do not task me with your insolence again because I would sooner kill you than waste time pulling your head out of your ass."

Cade dropped the man, then ushered the Gibley team toward the prison cells. As they hurried toward their destination, Oscar twisted violently in Michelle's arms.

"I can't control him," she warned before attempting a calming spell on the boy.

He snarled, his furious wiggles turning to kicks and punches.

Iris snatched him up just as his claws erupted.

"Oscar, sweetie," she cooed, one hand wrapped around his small wrists and her elbows pressed against his sides, "it's going to be okay."

He howled, his body flashing back and forth between human and cub.

"Liar! You want to sacrifice me!"

Iris kept racing with the others toward the cells, rearranging her hold on Oscar as she ran until she had him wrapped in a bear hug, her skin and his clothes bloody from his attempts to escape.

"Little love," Michelle begged the boy. "I would die to protect you. No one is here to hurt you."

Oscar shook his head and shot a hate-filled look at Tanner.

"That was before you were with him," the boy accused.

"Baby," Iris tried again, desperation edging her words. "We are here to…to kill Camille and remove the stones from her. That's what we were talking about in the van. We need you to complete the circuit so we can open the door. The vibrations will tickle your tummy, but they won't hurt you. Once the door is open, I will rip the stones out of Camille and then I will take her heart."

He shook his head, his entire body one wriggling mass until he had twisted around enough that he could sink his fangs into her bicep.

"Hold him," she said to Cade. "I don't think it matters for the ritual, whether he complies or not. The vibrations will either calm or distract him."

"Can't we try—" Michelle started, her words cut off by the look Iris shot her.

"No," Iris answered. "The Gibley attack has begun. We do this now, or they die."