And then I raised my right hand and sent that energy hurtling into the skies above me, calling,“Ventas tempestas!”at the top of my lungs.
My voice rang out, far too loud, and I opened my eyes to see blinding energy of many colors come washing up through me from the rune circle beneath my feet and go lashing into the sky. A crash of thunder loud and close enough to shake my chest smashed the air, and over the course of seconds, the water in the air, now being drawn from the icy depths of the lake, condensed into low, thick, angry storm clouds, lit by a continuous rumble of wildly colored lightning.
The storm boiled up out of absolutely nowhere, not a thousand feet above the street, clouds billowing down and closer, continuous thunder growling and echoing like some enormous and furious beast.
I kept my opened right hand over my head, fingers held in a rigid claw, keeping the energy going, containing the energy I’d unleashed through sheer, unbroken concentration.
“Bob!” I screamed over the fury. “Oz me!”
“On it!” Bob chirped through my staff, his voice in a near panic.
And a second later, I felt my perceptions blur, and my perspective shifted. Suddenly, I felt I was floating about twenty feet above the streetoutside the front of the castle, and my physical eyes could see that only my head was showing up as an enormous image, bigger than ten men, lightning that echoed the storm above flashing in my eyes.
People screamed. They began retreating to either side of the street, looking up at me in sheer terror. Smartphones were exploding into clouds of sparks on every side.
“All right, people!” I shouted, and my voice was louder than the storm. “I tried to share hot chocolate with you! I tried to be nice! And now you’re shedding blood in front of myhome!” The last word boomed out loud enough to crack the glass of windows all around.
“I have had it!” I thundered on.“Fulmen! Fulmen! Fulmen!”
And at each word, bolts of lightning crashed down from the storm above, thundered down into the center of the street, driving the two sides back even farther from each other, sending people to the earth, screaming and covering their ears and heads.
“Pluvias!”I screamed.
And rain, rain barely warmer than ice, rain so thick that you’d have to cover your mouth and nose to breathe, crashed down from the skies above. It smashed into the crowds, driving everyone left standing to their knees, crouching to cover their heads and faces.
And the falling water flowed down, water thick enough to melt through magical energy not grounded in the castle’s stone, smothering the fires of fear the Malvora vampires were spreading, bringing sudden, cold clarity to everyone being influenced.
“Nonpluvias!”I called.“Nontempestas!”
And like that, the rain stopped. The lightning stopped. The thunder stopped.
The silence was deafening.
The giant floating head of me said, in a voice all the more terrible for its softness, “I’m tired of the disturbance to my home. Tired of you making the good people who live here afraid. So unless you want the next communication from any of your insurance companies to include the wordsact of God, I suggest you all leave in peace. While you can.”
There was a long moment of stillness.
And then they scattered, running back down the streets, soaked andshaking, shocked and terrified looks on their faces, fleeing for their lives.
I closed my fist, cutting off the energy, sent it back into the conjunction of the river of ley lines beneath me. The vast projection of my head went with it. Spells backed bythatmuch energy wouldn’t be of any help to what was coming next. The castle was in a residential neighborhood. It would have been like bringing a howitzer to a fistfight.
For the first time, I looked around and saw the pulsing fire of blue and green and gold energy burning from every inscribed rune in the castle. It lit the streets around it for a couple of blocks at least.
I blew out a breath and disentangled myself from the stone and rock of Merlin’s fortress, felt the power fade, felt myself returning to my normal self, felt myself become wholly human again. I felt a little tired, but not as much as I’d thought I would. Most of what I’d done had been a matter of concentration, not drawing energy out of myself, out of my own emotions.
I took a deep breath and looked around.
Fitz was staring at me, his face pale, his eyes wide and bright.
Matias looked like he might be in a state of mild shock.
Bear was watching me steadily, her face inscrutable.
I walked over to the battlements and watched people run.
I felt awful.
That I’d scared them that much. Most of them were just folks.
