We are totally using a ley line to go to Bali when all this war shit is over.
I turn to tell Rogan just that when my ears pop, and all at once I’m bombarded by sounds. Confusion lurches through me, and I look around as though I can make sense of the cacophony I’m hearing, but my eyes haven’t adjusted yet. Screams and booms, shouted orders, and panicked cries surround me.
My hand tightens in Rogan’s as fear overwhelms me, and then in a blink, my eyes adjust and all I can see is chaos. Order members are everywhere. They’re swarming the empty field and parking lot. I can just make out Rogan’s car before visibility is cut off by running bodies. Elon, Prek, and Marx are surrounded, and now soldiers are running at me and Rogan. Warning explodes from me to Rogan through our tether, but before I can do anything more than fill with consternation, I’m hit with a force so strong that it tears me from Rogan’s hold.
His angry, terrified shout rings in my ears, and I’m afraid that we’ll never stop being torn apart like this. I call on my magic to try and stop the elemental witch who’s trying to fling me into the trees. But another gust of wind takes hold of me, only this one quickly drops me hard to my feet in the short grass. The landing is jarring, but nothing hurts and I’m not currently kabobbed on a tree, so I’ll take it. I look up to find Prek’s russet eyes tracking me maybe twenty feet away and a soldier running up behind him, ready to attack. I shove bone magic out into the mayhem, and when I sense the wards of the woman who’s running up on Prek, I shatter them around her, and then without missing a beat, I snap her neck. Prek whirls around to see the woman’s body slump to the ground, but there’s another soldier quick to take her place, and Prek shoves a hard gust of wind at them, blowing them off their feet and knocking several other attacks out of the way.
Shock rings inside of me, and I look down at my hands.
How the hell did I do that? How did I break through her projections like they were nothing?
Taking advantage of my momentary distraction, someone slams into me hard, and I go bouncing back on my ass. I pull my magic all around me protectively, and the chaos trying to overrun me quiets slightly.
I look around frantically trying to process what the fuck is going on.
How the hell did the Order find us?
Shoving magic away from me again, I search for Rogan, Elon, Marx, and Prek. My power hits other barriers and protections as it goes, but unlike the demons, these barriers feel more like egg shells than the steel walls I’ve encountered before. Without a second thought, I start to crack the shells, reaching inside and shattering bones as I go. I shove away my alarm and my worry about how I’m doing this, and move as quickly as I can. Fear and instinct drive me as I desperately try to find Rogan and the others.
In my gut, I know this level of power is because of what Jamie did to the Osteomancer line of magic, but I drop-kick that knowledge away. I’ll question it all when we’re not fighting for our lives.
Order members swarm me like an angry colony of wasps, but I manage to get back on my feet as they bounce off the walls of magic I’ve erected around myself. I drive the hoard away from me, turning bones into powder, snapping spines, and pulverizing skulls as I go. I should feel sick, but all I feel is enraged. All of these soldiers, sacrificing themselves for a bunch of power-hungry monsters. I don’t want this, but the High Council just ripped the choice right out of our hands.
If they’re going to attack, then I’m sure as fuck going to defend.
Fighting to move closer to the ley line, I finally feel the others. I force more power out of me to help fortify their defenses and slowly try to get closer to them.
Screams and pain and the sounds of fighting are all I can hear. I taste death and magic in the tainted air. Gray clouds cover the sky, as though they’re trying to shield the heavens from such brutality, and bones snap and fracture all around me. I hate that the sound is music to my ears, but each agonized bellow means I’m one step closer to Rogan and the others. More Order members pour out from the trees, and I want to scream in frustration as the numbers keep tilting in their favor no matter what we do.
I search for Rogan in the throng of clambering bodies, desperate toseethat he’s okay, but I can’t find him. I can feel his wrath and determination through our bond, and my boost of protective power is helping him, but I don’t know how long we can all keep this going. Right now, I feel strong and formidable, but I’ve never tested the well of my power. As a Source for the Osteomancer line, I know I’m working with more than the average mancer, but I also know it’s not infinite.
The call of blood magic sings in my veins, as though it’s begging to be called on and put to work. I can feel Rogan fighting though, and I’m worried that if I call on his power, it will fuck him up somehow or leave him vulnerable. Instead, I start collecting large pools of bone magic at my core before sending them out in brutal waves intent on crumbling defenses and destroying every bone in the magic’s path. Limbs tilt at odd angles. Bones rip free from skin. Bodies fold into mush as I reduce their osteo matter to pulp. I attack vital organs with shards of a mancer’s own skeleton, bodies piling up around me like a defensive wall and a warning to the next attacker who tries to traverse it.
I shove the bodies all around me off to the side, trying to create a barrier of death to stem the flow of soldiers from pouring in on that side. Bellows of rage bleed out into the overcast evening, but still the Order members keep coming. I feel animal bones lying patiently in wait throughout the forest we’re surrounded by, and I command them to come to me. I infuse them with the ability to claw, bite, buck, and stab in death, like they would have in life. The rest of the less lethal bone bits, I break into sharpened points, ready to pierce through anything and everything that comes for me and the others.
A fire begins to blaze in the distance, but I ignore the smoke for now, intent on dealing with the more immediate threats. I finally catch sight of Elon, and relief slams through me when I see that he’s holding his own, the wake of his devastation almost a match for mine.
A group of soldiers scream as they charge me, their magic battering against my walls of power, frantic and desperate. Before they can even get close to my protective cocoon, I send missiles of antlers through the air and pierce their skulls with them. The group falls dead before their bodies even hit the ground. Marx steps into my view, and hope ricochets through me. If we can get close enough to each other to regroup, maybe I can hold them off long enough to jump the ley line somewhere else.
I press closer to Marx and Elon, gritting my teeth against the effort it’s taking me to crush so many protections at once. I try not to let the sheer number of soldiers gunning for us overwhelm me, but a pit in my stomach opens up and alarm crawls over my skin all the same.
I’m so fucking close though. Less than ten feet and Elon, Marx, and I will be together again.
Wildly I start scanning the horde for Rogan again, hoping against hope that he’s somewhere close by. Something to the right catches my attention, and my manic gaze lands on a familiar face. He’s dressed in an Order uniform, not looking nearly as suave and in control as he did in the crisp cranberry-colored suit that day the High Priestess cornered me in an Order interrogation room. His dark brown hair is disheveled, and he’s watching the fight with a disgusted look on his face like he expected our immediate and utter annihilation and doesn’t understand how it hasn’t happened yet.
I recall that he’s a Contegomancer, a very dangerous one, and I switch the direction I’m headed in from trying to get to Marx and Elon to this fucker instead. Maybe if we cut the head off the snake…
I don’t get time to finish that thought before the High Council member snaps something to the line of Order members next to him. I follow his tight gaze, and that’s when I notice the guns.
Horror and shock explode through me, and I can’t even scream a warning to anyone before the deadly cadence of semi-automatic fire erupts everywhere. The line of Order members fires into the bedlam, taking down any moving target with no care to whether it’s friend or foe. Bone white sparks start to burst all over the walls of magic I’ve encased myself in, and the threatening ping of bullets fills my ears. I whimper, helpless and terrified, as I feel the same metallic assault against the shields I’ve wrapped around the others. I’m stopping the bullets, but for how long?
Hysteria tries to take over as I reinforce all the barriers I’m holding around everyone. A fervid, stinging power wraps itself around my protective walls of magic and starts battering away at me. It feels acidic and repulsive, and I want to tear my magic away from the contact, but doing so means dropping my barriers. I grit through it, but it gets infinitely worse when that same magic begins to assault the barriers protecting Rogan and the others. The other magic starts to scald me, and I scream with the effort it takes to fight it off, but it’s stuck to my power like cloying, corrosive sap, and I can’t get it off. More bullets fight to pierce my magic and end this battle, and tears begin to sting my eyes from the pain and the struggle it takes not to give into it.
Fight, Lennox!I snarl at myself, refusing to give up.Show these fuckers what you’re made of.
Just when I reach into myself again, demanding more power to combat the bullets and the burning of the Contegomancer’s magic, something strange happens. My magic suddenly feels wild, like it’s trying to jerk free from my control. I struggle to hold onto it when pain erupts in my thigh, and I’m knocked to the ground. I cry out, looking down frantically to find blood pouring out of my quad. I recognize the familiar heat and burning sensation that a bullet causes, and I immediately know I’ve been shot...but how?
My protections were up, I was… I look up, agony welling in my chest as a primal scream rips out of me. I reach for my magic, trying to get my protections back up. Somehow I lost my hold when I got hurt, and now each and every one of them is vulnerable. My terrified eyes find Marx as I rush to get barriers back around him and the others. His eyes widen with shock for a fraction of a second, the sound of gunfire drowning out my soul wrenching plea, and then a bullet rips through his forehead.
