Hi

I hope you're having a great weekend! Lots of stuff to do, but I squeezed some time in for a new chapter! I hope you like it :-)

Lara

___________________________________________________

Chapter 10

I eyed the entrance to the room. “What about Blaze?”

“We’ll let him go, for now.”

“Tell me what you want,” I said impatiently, eyes still on the doorway.

“You had a run in with some of my pack members last night.”

That made me look at him. “You mean their meeting with the half-witches? Or were you talking about the fact that they attacked me and stole something that belonged to me?”

“Both,” Marrok said.

I narrowed my eyes. “What did you want with the information, Marrok? Is this part of your future deal with the half-witches?”

He neglected the core of my question and brushed if off with one of his own.

“Have you taken a look what’s going on in this city? The peace the leaders have been trying to keep up was never even there. We all know how this is going to end, don’t we? There’ll be more than riots, and if you have any sense of self-preservation you’ll prepare yourself for that, or you’re not going to survive. I’m making sure my pack will survive, no matter how.”

He paused for a moment, before he continued. “Now here’s what you’ll do. You and your witch friend forget what happened last night. You make sure nobody has proof the half-witches and members of my pack were meeting. At all.”

I gave him a flat look. There actually was a part of me that wasn’t even surprised. “What if the Circle finds out on their own?”

“You know, I believe you’re someone who takes promises and clearing debts seriously. But just to be clear on this: If I hear news that the Circle got wind of the meeting, I’ll assume they heard it from you. If that happens I’ll challenge Fillin to a duel.” He smiled. “The little wolf won’t refuse me.”

I stared at him in horror. I didn’t know much about Blaze and Marrok’s common history, but I knew Blaze well enough to believe in every single word the Alpha said. Blaze wouldn’t walk away from Marrok’s challenge.

And Marrok would kill Blaze in a heartbeat.

* * *

I walked away from the fortress of abandoned cars with my head raised high, my hands swinging at my sides. Sometime during my unwanted stay in Marrok’s shack-like stronghold rain set in. Heavy clouds had moved in to block most of the moonlight, cold rain pouring down as if the world was approaching a stormy, wet end.

The weather reflected my emotions. I had the urge to kick something, or someone. My life just got more complicated, not to say completely messed up. Were the shape shifters an extension of the Inri-Brotherhood? Could it be that one of the shape shifters in the Fade pack was the leak we were looking for? And if yes, were there other moles in the Circle?

If that was the case, what was I supposed to do about it? I had no proof and I couldn’t even tell Andy!

I shook my head. It felt like I was running into a wall, head-first, no matter which way I looked. This didn’t make any sense. Last I heard Marrok hated the rogue witches. Why would he be working together with the Raven?

Raindrops ran down my face, the wetness seeping through the multiple layers of clothing I put on. I muttered curses under my breath as I rounded the corner to the side street my car was parked in – if it was still there. This quarter of the city was bad enough, chances were that someone took it for a ride, without the intention of returning it.

The street lamp beside me exploded. The sound was like an arrow, sharp and clipped. Glass shattered and sifted down on the pavement like spiky stardust. I ducked and protected my head, walls of air mushrooming up around me without a conscious thought.

Turning, I caught a glimpse of a dark shape at the other side of the street. Without thinking I sprinted forward, urged by a dark premonition. Something vast and ugly was coming my way. My vision shook, narrowed down to my car further down at the end of the street. My whole awareness zeroed in on the one thought: If only I could make it to the car, I’d be safe.

Another deafening sound and the street lamp in front of me shattered into a thousand pieces. A smudge of darkness appeared right underneath it, taking on the shape of a human. I changed course and dived through the straight line of parked cars.

I made it as far as two cars before the next explosion. The car beside me imploded. I flattened myself to the ground, turning around on all fours. The metal on the hood had melted and was sinking like a castle made of quicksand sizzling in the pouring rain.

The air hissed and popped with small explosions in the dark. Pockets of power and air in the curtain of rain. I straightened myself, mind sharp and focused with the kind of clearness you only faced in death. A group of five silent shapes was surrounding me in a tight circle. Torn jeans, sweaters, leather pants – all partly covered by black robes. All in black. Fissures of power tore through the air like little swords of electricity, that particular taste of power I’d come to know better than I liked.

Rogue witches.

I turned and looked from one to the other. Twisted, unknown faces staring back at me like blank trump cards in a poker game for life and death. Five beings that had the kind of power it took to finish me off with one good shot of dark magic. The only question was: Did they want me dead, or did they come for something else?

“There you are,” someone said.

I turned to face the rogue who had spoken. Gangly and slightly anorexic, too thin for the dark robes he was wearing for them to remotely fit. I had no idea who he was, but there was that look in his green eyes. It reminded me of things that lived and thrived in darkness and pain.

“Took us long enough to catch you by yourself,” Thin-and-gangly said.

“What do you want?” I said, surprised at the level and steady beat of my voice.

He stared at me. The smile came slowly, but when it did, it made me shiver. “You.”

I pulled on my magic. Walls sprung up from the ground like greedy hands reaching up and into the curtain of rain around us. If they got their hands on me I’d either be dead, or in the middle of a portal into no-man’s-land. I couldn’t decide which would be worse.

I saw their guarded expressions through slitted, narrowed eyes, instants before the atmosphere around us dipped and tilted. Power detonated around me, hitting my walls of air from five sides. Electricity burned along the particles of air, probing tendrils of dark power.

I jerked as the pain set in. Whatever they were sending my way, the rain acted as a conductor and amplified it. I felt pain scraping against my head, goose bumps spreading like a disease at the nape of my neck. Frying electricity wherever my magical senses touched.

I fed my walls with more power, sought that place at the core of myself – that one place that held and controlled magic. I pulled and pulled, taking more magic than I probably should. I pushed against boundaries, forced my way through the pain. It hurt hurt hurt!

There was a ripple in the air, power fusing and clashing incredibly fast. My walls stabilized, particles knitted together into a garment of concrete. Electricity slipped and slithered off its surface like bloody tears.

Their power drew back like a suction of retreating water pulling everything with it. Too late I realized what they were trying to do: They were gathering, mingling and amplifying their dark magic – only to come back with a full blast.

Their hands were raised, palms facing me. Dark power uncoiled and rolled off their fingertips. I watched the electricity spring from one open palm to the other, uniting them in an electrified pentagram.

My mouth went dry. Crap.

Power shut up into the night sky, eating away at the air and life around it. Electrified water gushed and came to life, striking, killing, everything in its way. Cracks splintered up and down my walls of air until it shattered into a mass of fragments and pieces that dissolved into nothing.

Before I could reform them, or call on my power for that matter, someone pummeled into me from behind, tearing me to the ground. I skidded forward on wet, slippery asphalt. The impact knocked all the air out of me and for a moment all I could do was relearn how to breathe.

I coughed and sputtered, gulping down air greedily. Too late I became aware of what was happening around me. One of my attackers was on top of me. I raised my fist, packing a punch of compressed air, and hit him square in the jaw. His head snapped back and for a second I actually thought I could get myself out of this.

The next thing that registered was pain. The rogue witch grabbed my neck, squeezed. Dark, electric power ripped through my cells and veins. I screamed.

My hands clawed at his frantically, trying to free myself from them. Anything to stop the pain. Nothing mattered, but that one thing. Survival.

I stared up into a pair of dark brown eyes. Was this how I was going to die – here in the middle of the street? I’d set out to do the right thing, for once. Was this really what I was getting for it?

The pendant around my neck flared to life, hot and potent power pulsating against my skin. There was a thought, some sort of realization, in the back of my head. For a moment I almost had a grasp on it, beginning to understand what it meant, but it slipped away. The need for survival flipped a switch in my head, overpowered any other thoughts I might have had.

Black dots appeared at the fringes of my vision, spreading to the middle with the spasms of pain. I felt myself withdrawing into my core, could almost touch that part that had always made me different. That place that housed my powers and the ability to draw magic. That part that was always alone and liked it.

I’d always imagined it as something you could neither see nor picture in your mind. At some point in time during the last weeks that changed. Where there once had been a shapeless, crystal clear void, now there was a darkness that flowed and moved like the cold surface of dirty, black water. Something about the darkness made me recoil, reluctant to even touch it, while at the same time it called to parts of me I didn’t know. A strength that radiated confidence, but to a much greater part… desperation.

I plunged my hands into the dirty void and felt for its surface. Coldness knifed in and sliced me in two, starting from the core. It burned where it touched only to leave a wasteland of ice. The cold reached the tips of my fingers and left a prickling sensation. I watched myself raise my hand and smiled.

The world exploded into galaxies of blue.