Marked By Magic by Christa Wick
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Thunder and lightningstormed through Iris. The thunder centered itself in her brain and heart, but the sensation of a million volts raced round and round her body from head to toe.
"Slow down," someone buzzed in her ear as she tried to sit up. "Maybe just work on opening your eyes first."
Her eyes weren't open?
"You know your name?" the bzz-bzz continued.
"Iris Cade?"
Something cool touched her forehead. Fingertips, maybe.
"Almost. Cade is your mate. You are Iris Mercer now."
Hands she presumed were attached to the thing turning the buzzing sound into words moved across her flesh in a clinical, but gentle manner. Scalp, neck, shoulders, the spot just above her hip where she was most ticklish.
"Are my eyes open now?"
"No."
Slowly, Iris brought her hands up to her face, fingers coasting from her chin to her nose, then across each closed eyelid. She pushed the eyelids up. They remained open when she took her hands away. Her vision cleared like it was her grandmother's ancient television and she'd just given it a hard smack on the right side.
Her thoughts cleared at the same time. The day's memories flooded in. Oscar terrified, the power in him that Esme had warned her about, that damn plasma ball he must have learned about watching her teach Philia how to form and throw one.
Lifting her head, she looked around the large hall that ended at Camille's cell. The heavy door was shut. No one stood guard in front of it. No one was around at all, save for Michelle.
"Cade and Tanner are trying to find him," Michelle explained as she looked at her watch. "You were unconscious for around three minutes."
Strength returning to her arms, Iris pushed into a sitting position.
"We didn't finish it," she said with a jerk of her chin in the direction of Camille's cell.
"No," Michelle answered. "And I doubt we have much time before it's too late for everyone at Gibley. Can you feel Oscar? His energy seems to still be vibrating inside you."
Nodding, Iris rolled onto her knees, her palms flat against the stone floor and her arms fully extended. Michelle stood and held her hands out. With the latent's help, Iris was able to stand. She leaned on Michelle as she took a few tentative steps, then released her and used the wall as a steadying brace.
"This way," Iris said.
Two minutes later, she stopped at a split in the tunnel.
"Babe," she called out, body sagging against the rock. "He's not down there."
Cade's footsteps echoed at a furious pace along the tunnel's length. Seeing Iris starting to sag, he put on an extra burst of speed, grabbed her arm and hooked it around his shoulder, one hand holding her by the wrist on one side, the other on her opposite hip.
"Left," she rasped.
"That direction dead ends," he warned. "Don't get me wrong, the cub's scent is all over the space. Tanner and I sniffed high and low, but he isn't there."
"Yeah, still smells like him," Tanner said, coming up behind them, his gaze quickly scanning Michelle to make sure she was uninjured.
Reaching the dead end, Iris gestured the males to stay back but held her hand out to Michelle.
"Oscar, sweetie, I can feel you. I'm not mad at you, baby. I know how frightened you are and I know what it's like to be that terrified."
She took a long pause, her gaze scanning back and forth over the bare rock.
"When I was young, three men tried to kill me. I didn't realize I was a wolf or had magic then. The only people who stuck by me were my grandmother and Cade. Then one day, Cade's father came to kill me. He had helpers. They were two Hunters that Quentin had spelled to smell like wolves. But they were very stinky wolves."
A small, frightened voice spoke, its source undeterminable but close to where she stood with Michelle.
"Dark magic."
"Yes, baby, that's what it was—dark magic."
Iris lifted Michelle's hand and guided it to the wall.
"Can you feel how much Michelle loves you, baby?"
A tentative "yes" echoed through the dead end.
"And can you feel how mad she is at everyone but you?"
"Yes."
Feet shuffled behind Iris. With her free hand, she motioned the men to stay back. It didn't matter that they were finally convinced the boy was near them, she still hadn't located his exact spot. None of the lumps along the sides of the chamber were Oscar shaped. Until she laid eyes on the boy, he still had a chance to escape.
"I'm not asking you to trust everyone," she continued soothing. "I'm just asking you to trust Michelle. Can you do that?"
"Above you," Cade warned.
Iris looked up, saw just the reflection of Oscar's eyes. He blinked. A tear dropped to wet her hand. When she held her arms up, he fell into them, his limbs curling around her.
"We have to be fast now," she said, hugging the boy to her as she barreled past the men.
She heard a woomph then realized there were only two sets of footsteps behind her. Tanner had thrown Michelle over his shoulder to keep all of them moving along the tunnel at a faster pace.
The area outside Camille's cell remained undisturbed, the stones exactly as placed. Iris sat Oscar down and got on her knees to talk to him.
"Will you sit here all on your own, no one holding you or trying to make you stay?"
He nodded.
"That's really brave, sweetie," she said, moving to her position along the top arc of the stones as Tanner released a flustered Michelle.
"Sorry, love," he quietly whispered. "The expedience was, uh…necessary."
Michelle's cheeks flushed a soft pink, then cleared as she closed her eyes for a second.
"Ready," she said.
Iris started the first repetition alone, as she had done when they began earlier. Michelle joined her with the second. With Oscar no longer fighting the incantation, the vibrations among the stones quickly harmonized.
Gro tez kyì
Vel gro tvezka durn
Dvaz kyì zel
Despite his compliance, Iris kept a sharp eye on the boy as she and Michelle repeated the spell over and over. Still as a statue, he stared at the door to Camille's cell with a hate hot enough to melt the rocks around them.
Beyond the boy, Tanner and Cade stood at the ready, each man holding his pistol with one hand and securing a grip on the cell door with the other.
"She's rousing," Tanner warned with a slight warble to his voice. "No one said she was going to wake up."
"Babe," Cade murmured, "the cub's getting anxious again."
She shot a quick look at Oscar. The skin around his eyes pulled up and back and his lips were peeled in a grimace, the teeth sharpening to thin points. Another quick glance revealed that his fingers and nails had extended.
Tanner growled. "How in the fuck is she waking up?"
Iris shook her head without missing a word of the chant. Esme had briefed her and Michelle on what she had learned after absorbing the pearl, but included the warning more than once that she did not know what she did not know. She had specifically pointed out that Camille and the crystals within her body were the wild cards in the ritual.
Gro tez kyì
Vel gro tvezka durn
Dvaz kyì zel
With the last word still vibrating before she and Michelle could repeat the verse, the cell door flew open. It slammed against Tanner, pushing him hard against the cave wall and trapping him.
Oscar thrust both hands in front of him and screamed.
"Vel kyìvka rabzi!"
The stones inside Camille punched seven holes through her body. They shot through the air, Oscar their apparent target. Michelle threw her body onto the boy, shielding him. The stones hit her, burying themselves in her flesh and igniting her clothes.
Tanner threw himself on Michelle but he couldn't smother the blue flames that had erupted.
Camille crawled along the floor, her lips trying to shape the same words Oscar had used.
"Vel kyìvk—"
Iris launched herself at the witch, her right hand transforming into its wolf claw. The force of her leap and her own magic propelled the claw through Camille's flesh and shattered the woman's rib cage. Wrapping the claw around Camille's heart, Iris ripped it from the witch's chest.
Camille and her heart lasted another three beats before they were nothing more than ash on the ground.
Lifting her head, Iris surveyed the remaining damage and got to work fixing it.
