Natural Mage (Magical Mayhem Book 2) Read online

  The Mages’ Guild employed idiots.

  What to do…

  If he ran at the stone in an attempt to snatch it on the fly, they’d probably assume it was an attack and reciprocate.

  A battle would ensue.

  But if he nonchalantly wandered that direction, his hands in his pockets and whistling, like anyone out for a stroll through the wet fields on a cold, miserable day, they might assume he was vulnerable and attack.

  A battle would ensue.

  The alternative was to turn around, get on his bike, and go back to the mindless pedaling. They’d continue to watch, and he’d continue to mind his own business until he could get out of here and do a better job of losing them this time. He didn’t need that power stone—Penny had plenty, was surely over him, and likely wanted him to leave her the hell alone—and he didn’t need to further blacken his already corrupted heart by going on a killing spree.

  Leaving was the smart thing.

  He slapped the rock he stood behind in frustration. Smart or not, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  The feel of that stone was special. It called to him. Whispered to him of the woman who plagued his dreams. Begged him to grab it, package it up, and send it to her.

  He blew out a breath, the memory of her sweet smile drifting through his thoughts.

  It was probably harassment at this point, but he had to send her one more. Just one more to let her know he was thinking of her. That he’d never forget her. After that, he’d leave her alone and let her move on.

  Boy, would this whole scheme crumble if the source of power wasn’t actually a stone, but some item that couldn’t be removed.

  “So what do I do?” he whispered softly. “Run at it, or meander toward it?”

  A cold wind swept along the ground, scraping his cheeks with icy claws.

  Whatever he did, he needed to do it soon, or he’d turn into a magical popsicle.

  “Meander. Meandering is the safest approach.” He stepped out from behind the boulder, his head pointed toward the ocean beyond, and his eyes cut to the various figures hunkered around the stone like ill-fitting goobers.

  As expected, most of them jolted. Then shifted. Two heads came together in an impromptu meeting.

  “Nothing to see here, folks,” he murmured without moving his lips. Little translucent tags waved from the various elements around him, offering themselves up for use in his quick-fire spells. “Mind your business.”

  The soggy earth squished beneath his feet. A light drizzle shifted down, layering his skin. Still, the frigid air scraped across his face.

  The shapes within the ruins stilled as he came within a hundred feet of the circle of stones. Those near the end of the rock wall crouched, their focus acute.

  Did they think they were hiding? They couldn’t. Which meant they were more confident than the last pursuers he’d encountered. And why wouldn’t they be? They had more magical workers fanned out around the area. If they worked together even the slightest bit, they’d easily elevate their might and pose a real threat to him.

  But they weren’t natural witches like Penny. They wouldn’t give him any surprises. They’d been brainlessly trained in the same lessons he’d learned: learn your spells, guard your secrets, and, above all, power is king.

  In the world of mages, he was a king.

  As he came closer, he could feel the hard thrum of power from within that plain circle of rocks. It pulsed in time with his heart before quickening just a bit, infusing him with energy. Closer still and his adrenaline surged higher. Energy spread through his limbs and tingled in his fingertips and toes.

  An arm moved sideways by the end of the rock wall, and magic rose around him, rolling and boiling, shifting and spinning, practically churning in anticipation.

  Ready to kill.

  It was what he excelled at. What he could do with barely a thought.

  It was why he’d walked away from Penny, lest his blackness of character corrupt her goodness.

  A sad smile graced his lips as the magic around him darkened, his survival magic infusing it.

  The person by the rock wall stilled again, probably bracing for his attack.

  One footfall at a time, Emery made his way more carefully toward the circle, weaving together the first spell as slowly as he possibly could. His hands were low, his waggling fingers hopefully blending in with the darkness of his pants. The mages were still too far away to see clear detail.

  Ten feet to the circle and the power throb ramped up again. Blackness crowded his vision for a second and an image of him standing with his back to a blast of magic took over his sight. It disappeared the next second.

  He dove to the ground and rolled, finishing the weave and seeing two mages behind him with their hands full of ingredients. If not for his ability to foresee mortal danger to himself, he would’ve been dead ten times over.

  Their spell was already airborne, rushing at him in a sloppy, loose weave that wouldn’t do much more than stun him.

  They were trying to capture him. What fools.

  As soon as he zipped off his spell, he immediately worked on another one. He sent it off to the people at the ruined castle as he called up yet another one.

  A blast of magic sped toward him from the group of mages gathered at the end of the rock wall. He caught it with a shield built of his survival magic, which encompassed the spell and then ate through it.

  He hopped up and weaved familiar spells together as he jogged toward that circle of rocks. He sent another spell at the ruins, one at the rock wall, and then turned to hit two mages behind him, standing much too closely together.

  “Thanks for making my job easy,” he said. He’d reached the rock circle now and glanced down to the middle.

  His heart fell.

  It was a stone, all right. A gray, ordinary stone that blended in with the other mundane, easy-to-look-past stones around it. There was nothing exciting or unique about it. Nothing that drew and kept the eye, making a person want to look at it for hours on end.

  Basically, it was more like him than her. He should probably just leave it there and make the last stone he sent to her something truly exceptional.

  He fired off one more spell into the ruins. A scream rose before cutting off. Someone stood up from behind the rock wall forty feet in front of him. A jet of blue raced toward him.

  He rolled, annoyed that he was nearly soaked now, and felt a surge from the power stone. If he were a betting man, he’d say the stone was desperate to be used.

  Is this what Penny feels when she’s around the stones?

  Pulling on it, he amped up the spell he was weaving, adding a touch more energy to the effort and spicing it up with a little extra nastiness. There was that lack of moral character he was talking about. Let Penny try to tell him he wasn’t evil now.

  The spell plunged through the mage’s chest, then ballooned out, ripping his body apart. He barely had time to scream.

  “I really should just leave you here,” Emery said to the power stone, still using the extra boost to form a spear to send through the air at the last mage he could see. She took a big step forward and shoved her hands in front of her, trying to use her body for an extra push or something. Emery hadn’t seen it done before. Maybe it worked, but it sure looked stupid.

  He added an acidic component to his spell and sent it off before she could fire hers. Rather than watch the spell’s trajectory, he snatched the power stone off the ground in all its humdrum, dull glory, and turned in a circle, seeing if anyone else planned to pop up like a jack-in-the-box.

  The mage near the ruins was working on something else, but she didn’t get a chance to fire it off. Emery’s spell had torn her initial spell apart without dissipating, and was carrying on toward her.

  Smarter than the average bear, the mage turned to run. But too late.

  Emery’s spell smacked into her back. The scream sailed across the green fields before ending in a ragged gurgle.

  Back at his
bike, Emery tucked his stone away, still looking for anyone hiding among the rocks. No one had made a move.

  “I should’ve gone for a truck or something,” Emery said to the stone, then laughed. He was talking to rocks now. Penny had turned him into a weirdo like her.

  His thoughts drifted back to her. He hadn’t had any communication with Darius for weeks. Last he’d heard, Penny was safe and sound, living and training with the Bankses, a mostly calm dual-mage pair with decades of experience.

  She had the life she deserved. Balanced, just like she was.

  7

  “Mother trucker. Holy fudge sticks…butter frack…nickel turdswallop!” Sweat poured down my face. My hair clung to my cheeks. I’d been on the defense for about twenty minutes and couldn’t get out from under my attackers.

  “Butter frack?” Reagan called out. “What are you even saying?”

  She’d been taunting me the entire time. It was as bad as the newbie vampire continually dashing at me, only to jerk to a stop twenty feet away and stiffly back off.

  I tore down the next spell, one I recognized, but when I went to retaliate…nothing. My mind went completely blank again. I just stood there, daft and blinking, waiting for whatever came next.

  “Stop.” Reagan pushed forward from the wall. She looked as frustrated as I felt.

  The mages stationed around the room lowered their hands, most of them hardly taxed. Callie palmed her helmet, and her bulldog expression said she had an I told you so headed Reagan’s way on my behalf. Dizzy gave me a supportive thumbs-up, and for some reason, that was the worst of all.

  Last but certainly not least, the green monster dashed forward again.

  I staggered backward. Darius flinched.

  Time slowed down.

  The mages hadn’t so much as reacted, but the vampires had already braced themselves to move. Their muscles flexed. They were two heartbeats away from surging forward to grab the newbie.

  They would never make it in time.

  As that thought ran through my head, I saw Reagan’s eyes widen. Her shoulders turned, as though she were about to fling out a hand.

  I didn’t have time to look around in wonder.

  The green vampire bore down on me, its magic vile and intense and boiling.

  Its intentions were clear: Nourishment. Destruction.

  It intended to kill me, and no one would get there in time to stop it.

  The Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky stone pulsed out a shock wave of power. It hit me dead center, slicing through the film of the vampire’s acidic, rotting magic, giving me a boost and a push at the same time.

  I needed to act.

  Another heartbeat and the vampire was ten feet from me and launching into the air. His fangs dripped saliva. His claws clicked before spreading.

  My temperamental third eye—my souped-up intuition—took over.

  Survive.

  I closed my eyes, feeling the currents around me. Bending the vampire’s magic into my own. Using the resources in my belt, yanking on the power in the stones littered across the floor, and stealing from the mages’ satchels.

  Kill it or it will kill you, I thought, time running out. Kill it or it will kill you. The newbie seemed to hang suspended in the air, bearing down. The second his monster form landed on my body, I would be done.

  Rage pushed at me from one of the stones, giving me another boost. Ice and fire rolled through my blood, carrying Reagan’s signature flare, and I felt a wave of primal protectiveness from one of the vampires—Darius. Energy flared around me and I sucked it all in.

  My fingers danced to the beat of my will, pulling the various strands of magic together faster than I could think. Responding to the need of the moment. Using every resource and type of magic available to me.

  The newbie was mere feet away.

  Instinctively, I pulled back and slapped my palms together. My eyes blinked open.

  Blaring white light exploded from my hands. It burst into an array of colors and then hardened into a shiny wall. The vampire’s face, one foot from my own, smashed into hard, colorful air. Bone cracked. Its body hit next, like smacking a force field.

  The wall wrapped around the falling body, covering it from head to toe. It condensed, and bones popped like fireworks.

  “Oh, ew.” I didn’t have time to retch.

  Without warning, an unseen hand slapped me to the side and sent me sprawling. Swampy green limbs scooped me up and ripped me away as a flash of pasty white took up a post between me and what was left of my attacker.

  “Gross, gross, gross. Marie, put me down.” I held my hands away from her strangely clammy skin.

  She didn’t comment, instead dropping me by the wall and standing in front of me. I peered around her knobby knee.

  Reagan stood with a transformed and naked Darius. The squeezed and definitely dead vampire lay mangled at their feet, oozing a black sort of goo.

  “Gross,” I breathed, fire climbing up my esophagus. I was not cut out for all the death and mayhem of this new magical life. I’d had no time to gear up for the nasty things I now saw regularly.

  Reagan and Darius’s gazes pointed in different directions, not landing on any one thing, as though they were trying to play it cool. Between their flat expressions and the mages’ antsy shifting, fear crept into me. Doing a spell like that in the Mages’ Guild, where I’d been surrounded by enemies, was one thing. Doing it in practice was entirely another. But then again, that vampire would’ve killed me.

  Right?

  My rocks started to release a pounding beat of magic, reacting to my anxiety. Magic drifted up and collected above my head, roiling in a cloud only visible to me.

  Which meant I was the only one who knew I was not completely in control and, based on my current feelings, was quite possibly dangerous.

  “You should probably hold my hands down,” I said to Marie.

  Darius’s head snapped up and his eyes immediately found mine. His head ticked a fraction, and without his having said a word, Reagan came striding toward me, her expression still flat.

  “I got her, Marie,” she said when she approached. “We’ll just go for a little walk.”

  Marie, still in her ugly form, stepped aside.

  “What, ah…” Reagan stopped short. She glanced upward before lifting her hands to feel my cloud. “What have you got brewing up there?” Her head tilted to the side. “That’s…” A smile spread across her face. “That is the stuff, right there. I mean, it’s terrifying, don’t get me wrong. Marie, you might want to run. But that is some interesting and complex spell working. Is it…” She squinted and looked up and to the left. “Is it actually a spell? I’m having a hard time figuring out…”

  “I don’t know what it is. It is a mass of magic and a lot of anxiety.”

  “Well, okay. Let’s walk it off, shall we?” Reagan jerked her head for me to walk with her.

  I fell in step. “Am I going to get in trouble?”

  “Where are you taking her, wannabe?” John stepped forward with a pale face and a jerky sort of swagger. “Because she had no choice but to kill the vamp. That thing shouldn’t have been allowed in the Brink. None of ’em should be. I should phone Roger.”

  Reagan laughed. “Like you know Roger, sure.”

  I’d heard Roger’s name a few times. He was clearly someone powerful.

  “John, leave it be. Reagan doesn’t mean Penny any harm,” Callie called out, starting forward.

  “Everyone knows she’s the lap dog of these vamps.” John tilted his chin up. “What’s to say she isn’t just separating Penny from the group so they can get their revenge?”

  “That’s not what Reagan is doing.” Callie pulled off the helmet and stopped in our makeshift circle. “The newbie vampire succumbed to bloodlust, and Darius was rushing in to stop it. Too late, I might add. He put Penny in grave danger. Not to mention all of you.”

  “I could’ve handled it,” John said with obviously false bravado. His trembling voice gave him a
way.

  “The newbie, sure.” Callie fluffed her hair. “The elder? Not even remotely. Just do yourself a favor and thank Penny and Reagan for your lives.”

  “Not me,” Reagan said. “The job was done by the time I showed up. Figuratively speaking, obviously. Bottom line, it’s all over, the practice is done, and only a few very perplexing questions remain.”

  “You didn’t create the…” Callie stared hard at Reagan.

  “That perfectly executed invisible wall that shouldn’t be possible for an ordinary mage’s magic, regardless of whether they’re a natural?” Reagan grabbed my sleeve. “No, I did not.” She went to start forward, but John didn’t move, staring down at her with an obstinate expression.

  She smiled, showing even, white teeth, a terrible sign. The small hairs stood up along my arms.

  “I didn’t finish that question for a reason,” Callie said into the stare-off, completely oblivious to the danger that was brewing. There it was again—the unspoken thing between Reagan and the Bankses.

  “Like these hacks will get the relevance,” Reagan replied in a bored voice, another terrible sign. “John, do you plan to move?”

  “No. You need to—”

  Faster than thought, she reached out and shoved him to the side. The angle was awkward, and while John was thin, almost skinny, he was tall and had to be somewhat heavy.

  None of that mattered.

  His body flew. Not expecting the shove, or the incredible strength clearly behind it, he didn’t react fast enough. He hit the floor on his arm and thigh and slid five feet.

  Reagan gave all the other mages a fierce gaze, and the rest of the small hairs on my body joined the ones on my arms. “Anyone else want to try and throw their weight around? Attempt to prove that power and stupidity somehow trumps my ability to kick your ass?”

  Laughter bubbled up my middle and a smile spread across my face, all completely unintentional, because I was scared on their behalf. She wasn’t kidding—she could definitely kick their asses without her magic, and their power didn’t trump hers on her worst day. I didn’t understand her magic, but I knew she was packing an awful lot of it.

  Intelligently, the rest of the mages shook their heads and backed up in frightened, jerky movements.