Dark Magic, page 8
part #3 of Hunted Shifters Legacy Series
They didn’t look human, especially when he focused on the way light seemed to glint in their beady eyes.
Especially when their hands came out, glowing profusely.
Before they could say a word, Leila was already holding up two hands in surrender.
“I’m not an enemy,” she said, her voice turning polite and respectful. Her British accent was more pronounced than usual, and he knew it was deliberate. The bright, bubbly personality from the charity event was gone, and in its place was someone very demure. “Ryan Starr gave me your address. I would’ve sent a note first, but hunters were after us.”
“What are you?”
Promptly, she let her claws and sharp teeth out, then carefully retracted them. “Someone needing help from your kind. Please. I would like to talk to your leaders, if possible.”
His back turned rigid when no word came from them, and the way their bodies were so still led him to believe they were about to attack at any second. One of the men lifted a glowing hand in the air.
That hand motioned at them.
“Follow us, then.”
They did. Even then, Ovie didn’t relax his guard as the men flanked them on both sides. He noticed Leila sidling closer to him, and he wondered if it was an act or an actual precaution.
All thoughts about her agenda ceased when he saw more figures ahead of them. Not only that: there was also what looked to be a village, big enough to house a small clan. Fifty, at most. It was a bizarre village in the way it was set up: colorful silk tents scattered in between sturdier bamboo huts on stilts, circling a rocky, empty center area. Three figures in cloaks stepped up front, pausing their walk to the village.
Leila glanced at the guard, who nodded. She then returned her gaze to the three cloaked figures and bowed her head.
“Hello. My name’s Leila, I’m a shifter. I’ve come seeking sanctuary and possible business. This is Oliver, and he’s my companion. I would like to let you know that we don’t come with any intention of harm.”
Silence, this one stretching longer than when they’d met the guards. Again, Ovie braced himself, ready to shift at the first sign of danger. He sensed something stirring in the air, and it took him a second or two to realize what it was: power, one so strong that he could nearly smell its rich, coppery scent. Like blood, but thinner, and leaning more towards sweet.
One of the cloaked figures removed the hood, revealing the very youthful face of a teenage girl. She had white hair and silver eyes, locked on Leila.
“What is your business, then?”
At that, Leila’s shoulders straightened. “I want to enhance my magic. I want to learn how to use it. I’m good with potions, having taught myself. I have the basics of magic but I need to learn more.”
The last statement had Ovie glancing her way, wondering why she was lying. He wanted to groan out loud when the remaining two removed their hoods to show a middle-aged and an elderly woman respectively, with the latter nodding. They had the same hair and eye colors as the teenage girl.
“Have her checked. I want to see if she’s lying.”
The teenage girl stepped forward, seemingly floating in her smooth moves. Leila remained calm and still when the girl’s hands rested on her shoulders, glowing. The glow intensified before immediately cutting off, after which Leila shuddered and swayed back. Ovie was there to hold her still, his skin shuddering when he felt the magic zing from her to him.
His hand reached out to her arm, squeezing to get a message across.
What the hell are we doing here, Leila?
He felt his blood go still when the teenage girl spoke, crystal clear voice piercing the air.
“She speaks the truth. She has a tracker patch on her shoulder, I’ve deactivated it.”
“Those hunters know their business,” the middle-aged woman said.
Ovie could only stare at Leila. As if sensing it, she glanced to give him a defiant look before returning her attention to the three.
“Will you help me?”
“It’s presumptuous of you to immediately think we’ll help you practice your measly form of magic just because you barged in here and demanded it,” the middle-aged woman scoffed, tone almost sneering. Her voice was fuller than the girl’s, a gritty quality to it. “If I were in charge here, I’d be removing you. Shifters don’t deserve a place in our society.”
“But you’re not the one in charge,” the elderly woman replied. Her voice was quiet and serene, but the firm finality in it was like a bomb being dropped. “And like I said before, it’s pointless to drive away other creatures actively seeking to make themselves better. What is the purpose of you wanting to learn magic, Leila?”
“To help a friend in need,” Leila responded without hesitation. “He’s a shifter like us, and we’re from a small clan. Magic altered him, and he’s becoming wilder and dying. He’s a rough man with a heart of gold, and it’s not his time yet.”
The description of Malcolm was spot on, and Ovie could only watch as she went on. Finally, the elderly lady nodded again.
“Very well. But my daughter’s right. You can’t just come barging in here.” A heavy pause. “Show us your skills first, and let us see if you’re worth helping out.”
That was…not what he expected, though Ovie couldn’t say what he expected. But Leila seemed to be ready for it, nodding her head once before she took a step forward. The movement placed her in between him and the guards, then the cloaked figures, with a few of the village people peeking. She reached inside her coat pockets, producing vial after vial and explaining the potions to the crowd. They were the same vials she’d shown him, but the explanations were more complex. The watchers’ expressions didn’t change, obviously having seen this before.
Unperturbed, Leila proceeded, closing her eyes. His eyes widened when her hands glowed, the process slower than the magic-users’ here and decidedly fainter. But the glow spread over the ground, surrounding her in a circle. Then they scattered, turning into lines, drawing around her in a crisscross.
With a flick of hand, she let them spread further, snaking through the grass and towards the guards and the women. Their bodies didn’t move, but their faces changed, as if experiencing something in their minds.
A second later, his nerves pulled tight when he experienced it, too: colors swirling in front of his eyes, shimmering and growing bright enough to nearly blind him. Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to close his eyes, and the way his body stayed immobile made him realize it wasn’t just his eyes that couldn’t move.
His body couldn’t, too.
The subtle paralysis was short, lasting maybe two seconds. Then the light retracted to her little circle, and soon it was swirling into another line and drawing another symbol around her: runes to strengthen her magic. The runes grew brighter before moving outward again, after which smoke came up from the ground and surrounded the whole area.
It was like the smoke bomb she’d thrown on him, but it was short—shorter than the smoke bomb, lasting only five seconds. The light retracted again, lined up, swirled…and she kept repeating the smoke show.
He realized she was attempting to make it last longer, but she wasn’t succeeding.
With barely a hitch in her stride, she seemed to decide to move on to another trick: this one involving one of the vials. With a flair of glowing hands and the liquid thrown around her, she was invisible…well, not really invisible, but camouflaged, her movements masked as she retained the color of her surroundings. This one lasted ten seconds, at least, and the look of satisfaction on her face made her glow. Her confidence somehow doubled, too, as she showed herself back to the crowd and took a deep breath.
The light retracted, faster now. The line thickened as it swirled, drawing another shape that was more intricate than the previous ones. The remaining line formed into an arrow, seemingly slithering around like a snake before it found its target: a figure moving at the side, not human.
In lightning-quick motion, the arrow careened forward, its triangle tip latching on to the animal: a deer, caught in the headlights of the glow charging for it. Instead of hitting the deer like an arrow, the pointed light boomed forth like a rock, hurtling the deer backward until it went sailing in the air. When it landed on the ground, it didn’t move, crumpling instead. But he could still see it breathing.
Finally, the light retracted once more—and this time, it didn’t form into a line but faded slowly. The darkness after that magic show was stark, the crowd surrounding them becoming shadows in the aftermath. Leila walked backward, every step careful and precise as if she were waiting for something. Her head was held high, and her gaze didn’t break away from the three women ahead, who seemed to be the ringleaders of this whole place.
Taking his gaze away from her for a bit, Ovie found himself eyeing the guards and studying their faces. There weren’t expressionless this time, but expectant, and he realized they were waiting for the verdict, too.
Silence.
That silence was interrupted when the deer moved, stepping on some dried grass bits. They crunched before the animal bounded away, straight for the forest where the trees kept it protected.
The clearing of throat had Ovie returning his attention ahead.
“How many magic skills do you know in total?” the elderly woman asked.
Leila spread her hands, whispering glows still on her palms. “The ones I showed you were it. I’ve always felt it in me, and it wasn’t until I accidentally poured a potion on my skin that I realized I could activate it. I’ve been practicing for a few weeks.” A pause. “Please tell me what you think.”
The middle-aged woman opened her mouth—then obediently clamped it shut when the elderly one held a hand up without looking. She tilted her head, silver eyes studying Leila so intensely that it seemed riddled with magic. Perhaps it was. The elderly woman smiled. Leila took a step back to stand beside Ovie, smiling as well. Her smile was confident, almost smug, the demure look disappearing for a bit.
Then the elderly woman delivered words that had Leila stilling so distinctly, Ovie felt it straight in his bones.
“That was a shit show, and you are by far the worst magic-user I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Your talent is measly compared to the rest who’ve come here, and you leave me severely disappointed, considering your confidence in your potential.”
Chapter 11
With the magic swirling inside Leila like nothing had ever had before, bringing about a light deep in her soul, no words should’ve mattered enough to alter the confidence she felt, particularly after what she’d done: one magic trick after another, merely weeks after she’d practiced them. The fact that she had it in her all along had been the biggest shocker of her life…or so she thought.
The words that the eldest woman of the clan spoke out were clipped, matter-of-fact.
And they deflated her ego and became the next shocker.
The urge to lift her chin was strong, a defense mechanism from the shame that swept over and toppled her pride. Instead, she bowed her head and kept her eyes to the ground, reminding herself of a couple of things: one, they were experts at this field, and they knew what they were talking about.
Two, her and Ovie’s lives were literally in these people’s hands at the moment, and any defiance could mean death.
“I told you she was just showing off,” the middle-aged woman said, tone now filled with derision. She’d been getting on Leila’s nerves from the start, the judgment clear even before Leila had shown her skills. “She doesn’t have the skillset, but her overinflated ego makes her act like she does. Let me burn her to the ground, I’ll leave no remnants behind. It’s easy.”
The casualness in which the words were thrown out set Leila’s teeth on edge, and it was all she could do not to lash out. Her temper was simmering now, and she never was any good when it was out. She knew that.
Ovie’s hand on her elbow told her he knew that, too, and it was a quiet warning. Rationality battled with temper inside her.
“It’s also fairly easy to mess it up during a first trial, which I believe is just what Leila showed us: a very green side of her magic. Like I said, her talent is measly.”
“Good. Now can we—”
“But the fire in her eyes is a different matter,” the elderly woman interrupted, steel in her tone. It had the other shutting up instantly, and it had Leila looking up to find all eyes on her. “She has the passion for it, and we all know passion can get us places.”
The steely tone was accompanied by a steely look, lasered in the middle-aged woman’s direction. Leila watched as the latter turned red in the cheeks, humiliated right in front of everyone. It was a subtle barb, but the meaning was clear. The teenage girl was watching the exchange without comment, and her face was still unreadable when the elderly woman turned back to Leila.
“You have one month.”
“One month?” Leila echoed.
“To practice and demonstrate. If you show some improvement, maybe we’ll consider you. That’s still a big maybe. For now, keep your heads down and get out of here. We’re not a place of sanctuary, but a place of magic. You’d best take your trouble elsewhere.”
It was a mix of good news and bad news, and it made her body vibrate in her need to argue back—to show these people more. But another warning tugged at her elbow, this one more insistent than the last. She turned to give Ovie her patented death glare, then stopped when she saw the urgency in his gray eyes, locked in on hers. The message was silent, but clear.
Don’t be stupid. Don’t give them a reason to kill us on the spot.
Or something to that effect.
He was right…again, and it frustrated her. Leila swallowed it in and nodded at the cloaked figures, promising them she’d be back. She barely finished her sentence before they were already moving back to the village, and the guards returned to circling them, herding them back to where they came from.
Reluctantly, she followed them, matching Ovie’s long strides. It didn’t take long for them to return to the human fields, where he immediately climbed up a tree to scout his surroundings. She stayed where she was, perfectly still in her mixed emotions while struggling to tame down the magic swirling inside her. In her mind, the only way to describe it was this: lines thinning to wisps in her body, just like her outward glow earlier, pushing against her skin in an attempt to get out. It was ticklish and painful at the same time.
It was making it hard to focus.
Still, she tried. Ovie came down a few minutes later, his movements so minimal and quiet that she didn’t hear him.
“The coast is clear. But I think it’s best if we stick to trekking through the trees until we get away from the open roads.”
The idea of trekking…she scrunched her nose.
“I can’t believe they kicked us out like that,” she muttered.
“Yeah, well, we’re basically invaders in their home.” He glanced at her, and she could swear she saw a hint of amusement. “You should know, considering how you threaten death at every newcomer to the mansion.”
“Our case is different,” she shot back. “We’re a small clan with barely ten members under our belt, and any threat is an actual threat. That was a clan of magic-users, and any one of them could’ve killed us in a snap.”
He didn’t respond but indicated for her to follow him. Leila did, juggling between eyeing the ground and making sure her bare feet didn’t step on sharp ends, then eyeing him warily.
“You’re not mad? That I kept another secret from you?”
That earned her a shrug. “What’s the point? It’s already done, and I’ve decided that whatever I do won’t put a stop to whatever you’re doing. You’re a stubborn ass, and there’s no changing that.”
“I’m determined, not stubborn.”
“You’re also argumentative as hell. I can’t see why you and your brother don’t argue a lot.”
“That’s because Edmund’s good at evading any type of argument. He uses charm to manipulate situations to his favor.”
“Am I detecting a hint of bitterness there?”
“The day you become bitter to his antics is the day you lose,” she declared. “He keeps the clan together. I stay on the sidelines and do what I can.”
Ovie muttered something that sounded like stay in the sidelines, my ass, but he was smart enough to keep it low. The forest got deeper the more they walked south, twigs getting in her face and scratching. Annoyed, she pulled her hair up in a bun and tried to duck as much as possible.
The magic continued running under her skin, and she suspected it gave her the energy to keep going, too. She counted her steps, letting him take the lead. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking, because she thought hard: of the magic-users’ words, of what she’d done back there and their reactions, of the things she needed to do to improve.
God. She’d pushed herself back there, and it had been worth nothing to them. But she couldn’t expect to be an expert after a few weeks of practice, and that meant she just needed to practice more.
To devote ninety percent of her life to it, if she could.
“I would really appreciate it if you kept this from Edmund for now,” she said almost distractedly. “I know I’m past the deadline, but I swear the potions were close to working. If I could infuse some magic into it…”
“You mean that smoke show? What good is that gonna do for Mal?”
“That smoke show was just that: a show,” she returned. “That’s why I’m asking for help from them. I’m not stupid enough to proceed to complicated magic without the help of experts.”
“Either way, it’s dangerous.”
“Translation?”
“We’ll discuss telling or not telling your brother—my boss—later.”
“Ovie…”
“Quiet down.”
The steely urgency in his voice stopped her short, and she looked up to find his attention straight ahead. She took a peek above his broad shoulder and found two figures on the wide field, partly hidden by the tall grass. But they were visible enough that she could identify a man and woman, and they weren’t bothering to be quiet as they murmured to each other.
