Hi,
Anna will have to face one of her deepest fears in this one. Would you do the same if you were in her shoes? Let me know! I hope you enjoy the read. :-)
Lara
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Chapter 5
The sound of hands clapping tore through the silence like a bloody sword. My head whipped around. Medici walked up to me from behind.
"Well, done, Anna Johnson." His hand descended on my shoulder, squeezing. "Welcome to the Inri-Brotherhood."
I stared at him mutely, chest heaving up and down. The cool sheen of sweat on my brow seemed to fade with the warming of my face. I didn't know how I felt, less how I was supposed to feel.
Medici's head jerked to the right, and three of the rogues moved in to retrieve whatever I'd just laid free for them. My eyes wandered back to the wall, eager and afraid to see what exactly I gave them access to. This was the prize for proving that I was one of them. The only question that remained: What evil had I released into the world?
There was a crack in the wall, big enough for a small child to climb through and hide in. No, not a child. It might be used to hide something else entirely. One of the rogues was hunched over, hand buried in the crack, searching. He straightened and drew out a quadrangular, metallic object. I craned my neck, trying to see past Medici and catch a better glimpse of it, and stilled.
A suitcase? Really?
Was this what I risked my life for?
"What is it?" I said slowly, without turning to Medici. "You said you were going to tell me what kind of artifact it is."
No way this was just a suitcase.
"Null bombs," Medici said softly.
Blood-rush in my ears, cold and hot showers of goose bumps down my back. Just like the use of dark magic, null bombs were illegal, extremely dangerous, and unpredictable. If whoever worked the spell knew what he was doing, a null bomb was a powerful device, annihilating magic within its closest vicinity after detonation.
"You can't be serious," I said, turning to face him. The words were more like soft breath, a whispered prayer, than a fully formed sentence. "There are too many negative side effects to use them safely. You could accidentally-"
"Stop telling me things I already know," Medici said.
The rogue closed the suitcase and turned around, still hunched on the ground. "Everything's there."
Medici uncrossed his arms. "Good. Get-"
A heart-wrenching squeak thundered through the empty warehouse, like metal moaning, giving way under pressure. The figures around me went rigid with the synchronicity of a dance troupe, geared and attuned to each other as if they all were limbs and arms of one and the same body.
Medici's hand was around my elbow. The sensation barely registered. My head whipped around. The rogue witch beside us winked into non-existence. Too late. I felt the familiar tug of a portal at the fingertips of my awareness. We were in the middle of-
The portal jerked me upwards, then down, back and forth again â a rollercoaster through hell and back with the devil himself holding my hand. By the time my feet hit steady ground, I was sick to the bone.
We came out. Alive. And I relearned to breathe.
Next time, take it willingly, Medici had said. Yeah right. I would have, if someone told me that we were stepping into one, beforehand.
Not the safe, dust-eaten ground I expected. To the contrary. We were outside again. Staring down at the light-forked warehouse across the street. Now I knew why I thought it was our target. Medici wanted me to believe it was. I was fooled.
I was not the only one.
Medici created the perfect diversion. They, just like me, thought he was targeting the other warehouse. I stared at the warehouse on the other side of the street. There was a crater of smoke at its back.
Shouts and black-tinged air. Chaos. Shadows slinked and moved on the roof tops around and I had trouble making out who was who. Part of our side or the opposing team?
Opposing team. I snorted. I wasn't sure who was who in this stage play anymore.
I leaned forward, trying to make out who exactly was trying to get a piece of the Inri Brotherhood, but Medici drew me back, clamping an arm of steel across my front.
"Stay down," he said softly. "Learn to look when you can't be seen. Use the night and shadows to your own advantage. Now go into second sight and tell me what you see."
The night sky was alive, flashes of shock-white bright light and tainted air. Once I stepped into second sight, I saw it. The air was full to the brim with magic. Darkness, tainted with red or vice versa â who could tell?
Only, why did Medici want me to look in the first place?
Shadows lifted and turned into walking, talking human forms. There it was, in the peripheral vision of my other sight.
A moving shadow, gone from one moment to the other. I stared, let the range of awareness widen, and froze. The air in front of me was like a wall daubed in red and black. Smears, constantly in motion, appearing and disappearing at a whim.
I narrowed my eyes. Those were strong, red auras that belonged to powerful elemental witches. Was this the Circle looking for me, or for the Raven, or both? If yes, it meant Medici didn't lie about this one. If not...
I frowned. Wouldn't I have recognized someone from the Force? Who the hell were these witches?
"We're going to split up." Medici jerked his head towards the two rogues to our right. "Find out if they got someone from the tag team. The rest of you will distract them, then we get out of here. No matter what, you can't be caught."
Rogues stepped into portals in quick beat succession, leaving me, Medici, and three other rogues on the roof-top. I stared into the street, holding my breath.
Tag team. The dark witches were playing a dangerous game of tag with whoever the opposing party was. One of the rogues appeared at the corner of the building, chased by someone or something.
The aerial landscape stirred and roared up in a violent power surge. A wall of air manifested in front of him, solid and rock-hard, bursting with power, effectively trapping him. Who had that kind of control over his element?
My eyes zeroed in on a spot behind the dark witch. A lonely figure, clearly male, walking towards him with his palm raised. Determination was fused in his body. This witch walked with the intent to exterminate and kill if necessary, and he had the power to back up the threat. The rogue witch smiled at his opponent, opened a portal and disappeared.
A fire ball thundered above our heads, licking the rooftop above us. I ducked my head, crouching low. One after the other, red auras winked into existence, sparkling blood-red and vibrant. Left, right, behind.
Powerful witches. And they'd discovered where we were hiding.
Medici laughed softly, didn't even bat an eyebrow. "Time to up the ante."
The sound of rustling feathers and crowing in the distance. A swarm of ravens descended on the open space, aiming for the ring of witches. The rogues on the street were slipping in and out of existence, a coordinated dance. Dark magic permeated the air, materialized like a sudden vision clawing its way into reality. Dream and nightmare, life and death â all in one. I stared fixedly at it.
"Step forward." Medici's voice startled me, a disembodied whisper in the night that rubbed against my ear that ended in a physical stroke of paralysis, and I froze. He was directly behind me. "Help them."
I knew what he wanted. Knew it even without him saying. He wanted me to use dark magic, use it against powerful witches that must belong to the Circle. I turned sharply, stared at him, mere inches between us.
"You know I can't-"
"Can't do this, can't do that," he hissed. "If you can't, you're not one of us. If you're not one of us, you're against us. So, what is it, Anna Johnson? Can or can't?"
He stepped back swiftly and pulled me with him, tore me down to the ground in an awkward crouch. Another fireball shot past us, singeing the air above our heads.
If he hadn't pulled me back in time. I swallowed. Panic slammed into my chest. The feeling of fake-safety I'd allowed too much space inside evaporated. I wasn't safe. If the witches had it their way, we were all going to die here. Me included.
"What do you want?" I said.
"A distraction," he said softly. "We'll do the rest."
* * *
Spirit has its own taste. Unlike elemental magic it speaks to the mind in ways a human could never fathom. I could see its presence, the potency for magic lying in the air unused, unseen by most witches, was aware of it even more so since I got my first taste of it. Spirit encompassed the energy levels of living beings, be that the power of the mind or the body. Ever-present. Powerful.
Accessing the power was dangerous. Harnessing too much could kill its user in one blow â only one of the reasons why the Circle did put a ban on the use of Spirit. The potency of human life was stronger than elemental power, the harnessed magic burning through human wiring like acid liquor. Some argued that contrary to elemental power, Spirit was stolen power. Others said it was evil in itself.
Not all witches had the gift or power to access Spirit and not all could to the same degree. It mattered little. From what I had seen even less powerful witches could do a lot of harm as rogue witches. Used on humans, it was deadly on the wielder and its target, if not controlled and shaped by a skilled user. So what mattered was not really the degree of accessibility. The keyword was control.
Control I didn't have.
I felt the Raven like a shadow behind my back. He, that conundrum of witch and rogue witch that had managed to pull out and away from madness times uncountable.
"Close your eyes. Go to that place deep inside your core," he whispered. "Don't question, don't hesitate."
My hands curled into white-knuckled fists. I knew what was coming. The same, every time. I shut my eyes to the violence around us, sunk into that part of myself that I'd come to resent. And slammed into a wall.
I tried again, butting head-first into a solid barrier. I rested my head against it. I couldn't do it. I didn't want to do it. Not if it meant I might kill someone accidentally. Not even if that meant I would suffer because of my refusal.
"Still worrying about others," Medici muttered behind me. "I need you to stop the fuck thinking!" His fingers wrapped around my upper arm.
No. Not again.
My body tensed, attentive like one of Pavlov's dogs, preparing, readying itself for the trigger.
Medici squeezed. Dark magic tore through my skin, electric currents that burned and hurt. I shook my head, strained against his hand. It was a habit I picked up in the last weeks, a weak attempt to counter pain with motion, do anything to stop it. As always it merely prolonged the moments that would lead to the inevitable.
Enough.
I screamed. Stirred by hurt and anger, the wall I'd run into crumbled into dust. A dark lake that contained all that I feared and hid. Dark thoughts and emotions, dangerous secrets. Power. It was there, as it always had been. Accessible, because life was everywhere. As was death.
The pain stopped. I sucked in a breath.
"Don't fight it!" The Raven's voice was harsh, fingers digging into my arm. "It is what it is. Accept. Take. Do you want to die?"
Fear and panic slammed into me as something bit into stone above us, a harsh sound that rattled me deeply. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to live a caged life, and I didn't want to be used by anyone and anybody who got their hands on me. I wanted to live!