Magic Freed, page 4
part #2 of Heart Mountain Academy Series
The bearded man was only five feet or so in front of the porch when he stopped again. His lifted his right hand and pointed at me.
“He died,” the bearded man said. “We did all that you told us, and still he died.”
My mouth was fear dry, and I wondered if I’d be able to speak. I felt Aiden’s tension like a thrumming in the air. The tension of everyone standing on the porch washed around me like a tide. I swallowed hard and focused on pushing away my fear.
“I’m sorry your friend died,” I said and meant it.
The bearded man hiked one shoulder in a small shrug, his harsh, brown eyes locked on me. “These things happen. A man lives hard, sometimes he dies hard. You tried your best.”
For a moment, I hoped that meant he didn’t hold us responsible and retribution wasn’t the reason they’d come here.
His face clouded. “He was my brother. Wolf boy killed him. That can’t go unavenged.”
My heart beat so desperately I thought it might fly out of my chest. They blamed Turner.
Aiden took a determined step toward the bearded man. “You have our friends from the marketplace. Are they well?”
The bearded man shifted his gaze to Aiden and nodded. “So far.” He punctuated his words with a rev of his engine. “Give us the wolf boy and we’ll return your friends.”
Stella stepped up and stood on the other side of me.
“An exchange,” she said.
The bearded man nodded. “Straight across. You give us wolf boy, we’ll give you your friends. Two for one. You’re getting the better end of the bargain.”
I glared at Stella and mouthed, No.
She ignored me and continued, “Fair enough. What will you give us as proof we should trust you to hold up your end?”
I wanted to grab Stella and shake her. How could she be willing to hand over Turner like that?
The bearded man chuckled. “No proof. You’re going to have to take my word for it.”
Stella laughed softly. “I don’t think so. You will leave two of your men here. They’ll be returned at the exchange.”
Stella’s words seemed to offend the bearded man. At least it appeared that way from the stunned expression on his face. He was an idiot if he thought Stella wasn’t going to demand some sort of proof. Bearded man didn’t strike me as the brightest star in the sky, but I didn’t think he was stupid.
“We are honorable men,” he said. “We could have just roared up here and taken wolf boy, or all of them. All of you. We could kill you now where you stand, but our honor precludes that. An exchange is the right and proper way to handle this situation. We’ve done our part. It’s up to you to prove you are as honorable as we are.”
I stared at the man. Rogue’s honor? A code of conduct? It sounded like utter bullshit to me, but I felt the truth of his words. It mattered to him. And helped explain why, when we’d run into them in the desert, he’d made his men give up their clothes for Turner and Jack.
“A rogue’s word isn’t worth much,” Stella said dismissively. “Where was your honor when you attacked the marketplace and took three people captive? They’d done nothing to you.”
The bearded man shrugged as if the contradiction were unimportant.
“Leave two of your men with us,” Stella said, “or leave now yourself with no deal in place and nothing to show for your visit here.”
The bearded man shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.” He twisted his hands on the leather grips on his handlebar. The engine on his machine roared loudly.
When the engine noise died down, he said, “We’ll send a messenger tomorrow to tell you the time and place of the exchange. If you are not there with wolf boy, the hostages die. Their death’s will be blood on your hands, not ours.”
He raised his arm high in the air. The roar of thirteen motorcycles revving at once hurt my ears. Slowly, each rogue turned his machine but waited until the bearded man had passed through them to be at the lead before driving off.
No one spoke until the rogues disappeared down the drive. Stella dusted her hands together, turned, and strode back into the house. Aiden muttered low and the light that had flooded the drive vanished, leaving us in darkness but for the light from the windows. I felt a sudden, strong need to get out of the dark and into the light.
We followed Stella into the house. Every face I saw wore looks of concern and worry. Except Will’s, for some reason. His bore an ‘I’ve got a secret’ smile. I tried to hear his thoughts but couldn’t.
“Well,” Will said cheerfully, “it’s a good thing we know where the rogues live and most likely are holding the hostages. Or we will know soon.”
Stella spun to face him. “What do you mean?”
“Jack and Turner are trailing them.” Will’s eyes opened wide and he grinned. “What? You didn’t notice they weren’t here?”
I laughed and clapped Will on the shoulder. “You sneak! That’s brilliant.”
Will beamed. “Turner will stay and keep an eye on their hideout, once they’ve found it. Jack will come back and tell us where it is and lead us there. Those rogues might think they’re driving the action now, but we have a few surprises for them.” He suddenly blanched and looked at Stella. “If it’s all okay with you.”
“Damn,” Geo said. “Good work.”
Seph merely nodded, so I assumed Jack had told her the plan before he and Turner left.
Max—my most unfavorite person at the academy—boomed, “Excellent,” with such approval in his voice that I had to comment.
“Excellent?”
Max gave me one of his patented ‘Gods, but you’re stupid’ glares and said, “We’ve been waiting for one or some or all of you to start taking some initiative. We hoped there were some leaders among you, some independent thinkers and doers.” He made a low scoffing sound. “I’d about given up. Aiden and Stella kept insisting there was gumption within all of you and it would emerge. Pushing your way into the planning of what to do about the rogues was a bit of a start. Turner and Jack acting on their own is good.”
I opened my mouth to speak, and then shut it again. I would have said that Max, especially, had worked hard to keep us from taking any initiative. I could see by the looks on Stella’s, Geo’s, and especially Aiden’s faces that they agreed with what Max had just said.
Seph was seething. I felt her emotion like heat on my own skin.
“I hear your words, Max,” she said, “but find them hard to believe. Piper has taken initiative all along and all you’ve ever done is fight her on her ideas.”
Max laughed. “Piper? She talks a good game. She has some good ideas, but she stands around waiting for permission to implement them or for someone else to act for her. Look at how much effort we had to go through just to get her to access her natural magic. Really Seph, you think orchestrating that whole charade about you being kidnapped was easy?”
Angry heat raced in my chest. I felt Aiden gearing up to defend me. I raised my hand to stop him from speaking, walked over to Max and slugged him with all my might.
Blood spurted from his nose. He glared at me in surprise a moment, then hustled out of the room—to get a towel or something and try to stop the bleeding, I assumed.
Aiden glanced down and covered his mouth with his hand, to hide his laugh.
Geo called after him. “You deserved that, Max.” And then to me, “I wondered how long it would take before you punched him.”
I shook out my hand, which hurt. But slugging Max had been worth it.
Stella didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look disapproving.
“And now,” Seph said as she settled onto the couch in the common room, “I suppose we just wait.”
I sat beside her. I’d hit Max as much out of nervousness as anger. Seph was nervous, too. And worried.
“Jack and Turner will be fine,” I said softly.
She let out a slow breath. “Jack’s eagle doesn’t see that well in the dark. What if he gets lost? And we don’t know how far they’ll have to go. How long we’ll have to wait for him to get back.”
“He’ll be fine,” I said, putting all the false confidence I could muster into my words.
Seph only nodded.
Geo stood and tapped Will’s shoulder. “Looks like we have the next watch.”
Will nodded and stood. The two men went out to the porch, shutting the door firmly behind them.
Aiden settled down to wait. Stella disappeared into the kitchen, to check on Max, probably. Aiden, Seph, and I sat in silence a long time. Neither Max nor Stella returned to the common room. Aiden stretched, stood, and announced he was going to bed. That left just Seph and me sitting in the room, waiting.
“You can go to bed if you want, Piper,” Seph said. “I’ll be okay here.”
“I doubt I could sleep.” I took her hand in mine. “I’ll stay with you.”
Nerves and anxiety or not, we must have both fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes early morning sunlight was filtering through the curtains and Seph’s head was on my shoulder.
The front door opened, and a stark-naked Jack strode into the room.
“We found the rogue’s lair.”
Chapter Eight
We all piled into the truck—Stella drove, and Max rode up front with her—and followed Jack’s eagle toward the rogues’ lair. The desert we traveled through all looked the same to me, but Jack seemed to have no problem leading us. I trusted he knew where he was going. Anxiety distorted my time sense. It felt like we drove through half the morning, but it might have been an hour, or it might have been fifteen minutes.
We’d traveled at an even rate of speed since we’d left the academy. When the truck slowed and then stopped. I pulled the canvas flap at the back aside and peeked around to see what was ahead of us.
Jack had landed on a prickly pear cactus. Turner must have heard us coming because he loped up to meet the truck. Did that mean the rogues had heard us coming as well? Probably not, I decided. Turner was in wolf form and his hearing would be much better than the human rogues.
Geo grabbed the clothes we’d brought for Turner and Jack and hopped out of the back of the truck. Seph, Aiden, Will and I crowded together to see what was going on. I watched Geo and Turner still in his wolf form duck behind an old pinyon pine that had managed to reach six or so in height. Jack flew down and disappeared behind the same tree.
Geo came back alone but didn’t rejoin us in the truck. Stella climbed out of the cab and stood with him on the sand. Neither spoke. A few minutes later, human and completely dressed, Jack and Turner came out from behind the pinyon. I jumped down from the truck to greet them, followed by Seph and Will. Aiden climbed out last.
Turner was full of news. “The rogues’ lair is about a mile from here. It’s an old farmhouse. What do you call that style? Victorian. From before the upheaval. There’s a barn and four smaller outbuildings. The small buildings are falling apart if they haven’t already fallen down, but the house and barn have been maintained.”
“So all the rogues are either in the house or the barn?” Max asked.
Turner nodded. “I’ve been keeping an eye out. All fifteen of them were in the house when I heard you coming.”
Thirteen rogues had ridden up to the academy. It seemed probable that two were left on guard duty, if Turner had counted fifteen in the house now.
“The hostages are there, too, I think,” Turner said. “I haven’t seen anyone carrying food or drink out to the barn or anywhere else. Seems reasonable to assume they’re in the house.”
“Megan told us the rogues have magic,” Aiden said. “Do you know if the house is warded?”
“Yeah,” Turner replied. “It is. I felt it when I crept up trying to see where the hostages were.”
“Strong?” Aiden asked.
Turner shrugged. “Hard to tell without trying to breach it.” He chuffed under his breath. “I learned that from you.”
When Aiden was teaching us how to cast and breech wards, he’d cast several that felt weak until we tried to take them down. The lesson was to trust nothing, not even your own senses, and to always be prepared for surprises.
“Good to hear you were paying attention, for once,” Aiden said.
“More than once,” Turner teased. “I don’t know— Two or three times, maybe?”
Aiden cuffed Turner’s shoulder lightly but didn’t look at him. His gaze and concentration were on the farmhouse, wards, and rogues. He waved vaguely and said, “Come on, Piper,” and started walking toward the house.
Why me?
“This isn’t another test, is it?” I asked, hustling to catch up with him and keeping my voice low. “Another fake abduction?”
The harsh look he shot me said this was real. So, why me? Why not all of us, power in numbers and all that? I guessed that was a question for later.
We slowly made our way to about twenty feet from the building using whatever cover was available—a pinyon here, a boulder there. I could feel my friends’ anxiety about the two of us creeping up on our own. They wondered why only Piper as much as I did.
I swallowed into a throat dried by nervousness. Turner had kept watch on the house for quite a while and no one had caught him, I reminded myself. Aiden and I were at least as stealthy, though I wasn’t sure how close Turner had actually come to the farmhouse. As close as we were? Closer? Had he peeked in a window? Probably, since he had an exact count on how many rogues there were. So, there probably weren’t any trip wires or hidden magic outside the wards that would trigger nasty surprises.
“False bravery gets people hurt,” Aiden warned, keeping his voice so low I barely heard him.
I feel things, Aiden had said. Did he hear thoughts, too, the way I did? Or disembodied voice that imparted information I couldn’t possibly know?
I felt the wards around the house like a light electric buzz on my skin. Turner was right. The wards felt weak and were set only at the doors and windows. Maybe the rogues’ magic wasn’t much. Maybe casting illusions was the best they could manage. And maybe it was a ruse.
“Together,” Aiden said low. “Focus on the door and stop anyone trying to escape. I’ll try to crack the wards and anything hidden behind them.”
“Got it,” I whispered back, and wondered what he thought might be hidden behind the wards? Probably spells to attack anyone breaching the doors or windows.
He muttered low under his breath. His arms were loose at his sides, but he alternated closing his hands into fists and then opening them wide with his fingers spread apart. I felt, and thought I even heard, the wards starting to strain and creak. Could the rogues feel and hear it, too? If they could, would they try to shore up the wards, or escape, or attack?
I readied a net spell that would contain anyone coming out the front door or climbing out the windows.
A sound like glass shattering startled me. I sniffed at the slight scent of ozone that blew toward us from the house.
“The wards?” I asked.
“Down,” Aiden replied.
The rogues would know it. If I heard the wards breaking, probably they did too.
My fingers twitched as I refocused on the net spell I was holding ready in case anyone tried to escape. No one came out of the house. Aiden looked over his shoulder and motioned for the rest of our crew to come forward. We moved toward the house together.
Aiden tapped my shoulder. “The front door, please.”
My friends and I had played plenty with this spell, which we’d dubbed Open Sesame. I could do it standing on my head. But this was no game. I ran the words and motions through my head and then cast. The front door flew open and banged against the side of the house. Maybe a little less oompah next time, I told myself—because surely the rogues heard that.
The nerves and anxiety pouring off my friends was like a storm washing over me. I felt how their muscles had tensed, ready to launch an attack, or rescue, or whatever. Aiden held his arm out straight at his side, his palms turned back, to tell the others to wait. To me he said, “Go.”
I didn’t hesitate. I ran straight across the small bit of open land between us and the farmhouse, up the steps to the narrow porch, and through the open door.
The light outside had been bright. I blinked to help my eyes adjust to the gloom inside the house. The rogues were there all right. And they’d heard us coming, to judge by the number of weapons pointed or held ready toward Aiden and me—handguns, knives, and one fellow with a big ass sword, and another with a fucking harpoon. I screeched to a halt.
Bearded man, their leader was weapon-free. He grinned and opened his mouth to say something. I wasn’t going to give him the opportunity. I formed the idea of what I wanted to happen—no words were needed for step one of this magic. Aiden was readying something, too, but I didn’t have time to wonder what it was. I had to act now. I’d formed my idea, saw it in my mind, and sent my magic out to make it happen.
Weapons flew from the rogues’ hands and stuck to the ceiling before they’d so much as felt the tug. Aiden, I realized, had had the same thought and between us the magic had been too strong for any rogue to hold on. Furious, they jumped to their feet and bolted toward us. Aiden must have cast a shield or some sort of repulsion spell because try as they might, the rogues couldn’t get their hands on us.
I had something else in mind to keep the rogues away. I worked up the spell, focused on their bearded leader, and let my magic fly.
A startled, “What the—” from the bearded man accompanied his rise into the air. Levitation. That was a useful skill. His words cut off when I spun him around, so he hung in the air upside down. His t-shirt slid down and covered his face. A camping knife and lose change fell from his pockets and clattered on the hardwood floor.
I felt a grim pleasure coming from one of bearded man’s minions, a guy with a shaved head wearing a plaid lumberjack shirt. In the moment it took me to realize plaid shirt wanted to take bearded man’s place as leader of the pack and hoped beard’s humiliation would help shirt’s cause, I’d readied the spell again. He squealed like a little girl when I flung him into the air and flipped him upside down.
