He caught himself, drew himself up and leveled a terrifying glare on Alise.“You dare,” he hissed.“You die!”
With a roar, he swept aside Alise’s entire attack.His power billowed through the corridor, suddenly dense with spirit entities collected over a lifetime of malevolent magic, bolstered by Brinda’s brilliant fire and sun magic, carefully cultivated by her wizard master through cruelty and sex.
Alise used her own arsenal of spirits to battle them back, but she couldn’t match her father’s experience or his familiar-bolstered power.So she did what she hadn’t wanted to do.With a focused thought, she reached out, found the bond between wizard and familiar…
And sliced through it, severing Brinda from her father.
With a wail, Brinda collapsed to the floor, completely disoriented, as Maman and Laryn had been when Alise had done this before.Her father shuddered, his face distorted by astonishment and the sudden loss of magic from his familiar.The spirits he’d mustered faltered, their ferocious attack abating.Alise drew in a ragged, much needed breath, not having realized how heavily she’d been panting.
“You…” he managed to say, the word holding a world of accusation, anger—and perhaps a touch of admiration.“It was you all along.She didn’t just die.You—” He broke off with a snarl, bent, and dragged Brinda up by her throat, trying to reclaim her magic.“It shouldn’t be possible,” he raged.
The Chur familiar screamed as he throttled her, as if he could physically milk the magic from her.But the bond was duly severed.She was gone from him and he screamed his frustrated loss.
Drenched in sweat, exhausted as if she’d run flat out for leagues, Alise gathered the power remaining to her.It wasn’t much.
It wasn’t enough, she was deeply afraid.
But she launched a new attack anyway, unwilling to lose the opportunity her father’s tantrum and loss of Brinda afforded her.The final opportunity, she knew.If she didn’t kill him now, she’d be the one to die.The thought saddened her immeasurably.She didn’t want to die, but even more, she didn’t want to leave Cillian.He’d be devastated.And just when they’d been on the brink of having it all.She wouldn’t lose that—and him—without a fight.
Pouring all of her remaining magic into a single spirit warrior, she amplified the entity as she’d done with the carriage elementals, but on a much larger scale.Recklessly she ransacked the boundaries of its being, giving it unprecedented ability, all focused into a single, physically manifested sword to plunge through her father’s black heart.
The spirit blade drove forward and Alise threw everything she had behind it.
And a demon appeared.
Alise had never seen a demon, but its magic screeched like the wails of the dammed and it stank of scorched meat.Towering twice her father’s height, the demon shifted in distorted colors partly physical form and largely her human senses trying to make sense of a fully alien magic.The demon absorbed the sword, and the spirit wielding it—along with most of Alise’s remaining magic.
That alone was enough to stagger her, but even worse was knowing that her father truly had summoned a demon.They’d suspected he was dabbling, but the reality of it went beyond reason.No wonder Brinda had looked so oddly out of body.
Piers had been letting demons possess his familiar.
Her father gloated as the demon advanced on Alise.“I cannot be stopped!”he crowed.“You could have shared in this glorious, unlimited power, but now you’ll just die.But I will be immortal and rule House Elal for all time.”
Alise stumbled a step back, but she couldn’t outrun a demon.
In another moment, it was on her.
~28~
Nic opened hereyes and at first experienced a wave of disappointment.She felt as she always had, her magic strong and steady, but no different than before.A ring of faces watched her expectantly.Gabriel held her hand, smiling broadly.Jadren, Asa, and Jonathan taking notes and conferring quietly as their sharp, wizard-black eyes studied her, their wizard senses resting on her lightly, taking her magical pulse.Behind them, Seliah, her amber eyes already darkening with the intensity of her inherent magic, beamed.
They all looked too happy for it not to have worked, but…
“I don’t feel any different,” she said.
“You won’t,” Jadren informed her.He pointed his stylus at Seliah.“She didn’t.You’re used to having magic.The only difference now is that a door that was once closed is now open.Do something.”
“Like what?”She should have prepared.
He sighed in exasperation.“Something, anything, you ninny.Just do magic.”
Annoyed, Nic grabbed a passing fire elemental and tossed it down Jadren’s pants.He jumped with a howl, flashing a smile at Seliah when she doused him with magically summoned water.
“Thanks, sweetie.”He turned on Nic, still gaping in shock at herself that it worked and tossed off a salute.“Welcome to the wizarding world, Lady Phel.I want you to know that it will go down in the historical record what your first act of magic was.The schoolkids are gonna love this story,” he added with a smirk.
Nic was too elated to care.She seized Gabriel’s hand in both of hers, overcome.“It worked,” she told him, as if he didn’t know.
But he grinned back at her and tucked a wayward black curl behind her ear.“I know, Wizard Veronica.”
