rylee adamson 10 - blood of the lost (12 page)

He floated in the air, his long white hair swirling around his body. Like the Sylph I’d faced before, he wore all white, making him seem even paler than he truly was. The mountain shook beneath me, shivering as if it were going to leap up at any moment. I fought for air and gulped down several lungsful, the scent of ozone heavy. He was going to fry her. “Lark!”

“Deflect it, Pamela!”

I struggled to my feet and focused on the clouds above us. The rumble of lightning formed within the clouds. I lifted my hands and the magic poured out of me, sending the clouds flying backward. Lightning shot our way but missed by twenty feet, at least.

I ran to Lark’s side and she draped an arm over my shoulder. My feet sank into the ground and held as the earth firmed around them. “Don’t hold back. He will kill us if he can.”

“I’ve never let it all out.”

She nodded. “Only if you have to. You’ll know the moment when it comes, when there is nothing left but to unleash everything in you, every molecule of power you have left to survive.”

Although I didn’t need to, I held my hands up. The magic paused for a beat of my heart while I directed it to what I wanted. My idea was simple. Grab the Sylph and throw him to the ground so that Lark could cover him with dirt.

Simple.

Right.

The magic shot toward the Sylph and he dodged it, as if he’d seen it coming. But that wasn’t possible, was it?

“He can feel it, Pamela. He can feel the vibrations on the air like a snake feels the vibrations of a heartbeat,” Lark said. “You’ll have to outsmart him.”

Rocks shot into the air, flying hard and fast at the Sylph, and he batted them away like they were nothing before they ever reached him.

Changing tactics, I sent fireballs at him, one after another; left hand, right hand, left hand, right hand. Those slowed him down; the first thing that had, and I realized they ate the air. Fire was the key.

“Cactus, where is he?”

“Helping Rylee; we need to do this on our own.” She didn’t look back for him, though I could see the strain on her face in not doing so. Cactus was her friend, and yet she’d sent him with Rylee. Because Rylee was the one who needed to be protected at all costs.

The Sylph flew toward us and Lark tensed. “He’s going to steal our air, Pamela. It’s going to be now or never.”

I looked back for a split second to my friends, and almost threw up. The ogres had surrounded Rylee, Cactus, and Alex, and Blaz was flat out on the ground. Eve and Marco were above them all and were being kept at bay by several ogres with oversized crossbows. What had happened to Blaz?

“Pamela, focus. We have a job to do. We can help them when we are done.” Her voice was sharp and it spun me around. Lark was right. I had to do this on my own. I opened myself up to the magic and beckoned it forward. “Please be enough,” I whispered, and then looked at Lark. “I’m going to drop him. Be ready.”

She nodded and put a hand on my shoulder. The magic in me leapt at her touch, as if being called by an old friend. Lark gave me a wink. “A power boost, kid. Take him down and show him who’s in charge here.”

With renewed determination, I lifted my hands, and that’s when the Sylph made his move.

The tornado dropped out of the sky and spun toward us, ripping up chunks of hardened lava, any trees that were left, and all the dark gray ash. A maelstrom that would batter our bodies into oblivion if I let it catch us.

“Pamela, whatever you’re going to do, do it now. I can’t hold us against that,” Lark said, with more than a hint of anxiety in her voice. Peta roared her defiance into the wind, but there wasn’t much else she could do.

Squinting my eyes against the debris being kicked up, I braced myself. “I can do this. I have to.”

Fire danced in front of my hands, growing in size until it blocked our view of the Sylph. Larger and larger, I made a barrier of fire, the tips of the flames turning blue and purple as I expanded it over twenty feet.

My arms shook and legs buckled so I was on my knees in the gray ash, but I didn’t stop pushing the size of the wall I was creating. Larger and larger, until I could no longer see anything except red and orange. I was at the brink of my abilities and yet I kept pulling more.

As Lark said, it was all or nothing.

Above us, the Sylph laughed and shook his head. As if we were nothing to him.

“That is the one to attack,” I whispered, and my magic heard me. I flicked my fingers, and like a faithful hound, the wall of fire raced away.

“Holy shit on a green stick, what did you do?” Lark gasped and I looked up. The flames were smaller, but they were chasing the Sylph, and gaining on him. He tried to duck down and the fire dropped on him, wrapping him in its embrace. His screams echoed through the sky and the tornado dropped into nothing. The Sylph’s body fell and as soon as it hit the earth, Lark was moving, Peta running ahead of her. I paused and looked at where Rylee was fighting.

“Lark, are you good?”

“Go to Rylee. We will finish him.”

They ran in one direction and I ran in the other as the sun dipped below the horizon.

My family needed me, and I wasn’t about to let them face a herd of wild ogres without me.

CHAPTER 14

RYLEE

BEHIND ME THE wind howled and the harsh retort of lightning cracking the hardened lava worried me. The sounds begged me to turn around, to run and help Pamela and Lark. Yet I knew their fight was predicated on their abilities with magic.

With the ogres, that wasn’t going to be the case.

Alex drifted to my left. “Should I shift?”

“Not yet. Maybe they’re coming to make peace because they’ve seen what a fucktart Orion is.”

On my right, Cactus laughed. “Fucktart? I like it. Might even steal it for those moments of sheer desperation I’m sure will come.”

I rolled my eyes and reached for my swords, pulling both out of their sheaths. Just because I was hoping they wanted to do peace talks didn’t mean I fully trusted them in any way, shape, or form.

Ghosting through the scattered trees, the seven-foot plus ogres drifted toward us. All the colors were represented: black, red, green, violet, gray, brown, and even a flash of blue skin could be seen here and there. That hurt the most.

Dox’s family had been blue and they’d kicked him out for being weak. For showing kindness to others.

Anger flickered along my spine and it took everything I had not to shout at the leader as she strode toward us. Sas, Dox’s lover and one of the only violet ogres left to the world.

Her eyes were narrowed, but that wasn’t what I focused on. No, her belly swollen with child was what caught my attention. She swayed from side to side like a ship at sea, she was so big. There had to be at least three babies in there. At least.

“Rylee, I’m surprised you would dare set foot in my territory.”

“Temporary lapse in judgment. We thought this was a different mountain I’d caused to erupt. My mistake.” I grinned at her, though the grin, I knew, was anything but nice.

Her lips compressed and her ogres ranged out behind her. Behind me, Blaz let out a cough, and his voice projected to all of us.

I’ve not eaten ogre before, Rylee, do you think they taste like beef . . . or chicken?

My eyes widened as the less than subtle insult seemed to hit the ogres as a unit. They lifted their weapons and rushed us with battle cries that drowned even the sound of the rushing wind.

Cactus flicked his hands and fireballs erupted from his fingertips, slamming into those ogres closest to us. “Cooked chicken for you, Blaz.”

Beside me, Alex whipped his clothes off and shifted, his body sliding through the change faster than ever. He looked up at me, his tongue flopped out of his mouth sending spit flying. “Geeky werewolf to the rescue.”

I took a deep breath and braced myself as the first ogre burst through Cactus’s flame throwing. It was a brown ogre, his skin a pale tan, the color of desert sand. His eyes were the same tone, and that’s about all I noticed before I was dodging the first swing of the war ax he carried.

The half-moon blade cut the air with a high-pitched whistle, and headed straight for my neck. I dropped to my knees and swung both swords out in front of me, in a crisscross slash. He stumbled back from me, my blade tips catching the edge of his knees and drawing blood.

“I would rather we fought on the same side,” I said as I stood and advanced on the brown ogre.

His eyes narrowed. “And I’d rather cut your lying head off and shit down your neck hole.”

So much for making nice. He took a second swing with the war ax and I bent backward like a contestant in a limbo contest gone terribly wrong. “Alex, spot me!”

The werewolf got his paws under my back and kept me from falling flat on the ground. Then he pushed me forward as the ogre dealt with the backswing of his big weapon. I shot forward, whipping my sword across in front of me and taking off the ogre’s hand that held his ax. Blood shot out of the stump and I sidestepped it. Though he wasn’t dead, he would be soon.

“Alex, you got him?”

“You gots it.” He let out a deep snarl and leapt for the ogre, knocking him to the ground. Alex went straight for the jugular, his wicked-long canines crushing the windpipe in a matter of seconds.

But there was no respite for the wicked and I had more ogres to deal with.

Rylee, I cannot do much damage with them so close to you!
Blaz said.

“Grab Sas, maybe we can hold her hostage.”

I like how you think.
He let out a rather evil chuckle and leapt over our heads. But we’d forgotten about the red ogres; the fact that they had magic as strong as any witch. And they knew Blaz’s weakness as they knew mine.

From the base of the mountain, two large boulders lifted into the air, a pair of red ogres under them, directing the rocks that had to be at least two tons each.

Time slowed.

In mid-air, the two boulders swung toward Blaz, catching his head between them. As if in slow motion the boulders pressed toward one another, twisting Blaz’s head at an unnatural angle. The reverberation of the crunch of bones shot through me as if it were my head being caught in a vice and not his.

Rylee, I am sorry,
he whispered to me. Just to me.

“NO!”

Blaz’s body was held aloft as the rocks continued to squeeze his head. A final push and they let him go. He slumped downward, blood pouring from his nose and mouth, teeth broken and shattered. Eyes glazing over, the golden light in them dimming at a speed that could only mean one thing—

A scream ripped from me, one not even close to human; primal, feral, a cry that was every bit that of an enraged animal. The ogres closest to me actually stepped back, but that wasn’t going to help them.

I dove into the ogres, desperate to get to Blaz, my swords slicing through them as if they were standing still and not trying their best to take me out. Blades caught the edges of my arms; I didn’t feel it other than to notice the blood sliding down my skin. Clubs clipped my legs, and though I went to my knees, I fought from there, cutting off legs and driving my weapons through male anatomy.

I forced myself to Track Blaz, forced myself to reach for him.

There was a flicker of life still. We had time if I could get to him.

Please, for all that is holy in the world, let me get to him; let us get Pam to him.

The ogres fell in front of me; Alex and Cactus, and then Pamela was there with us, her magic curling around the ogres in ribbons of flame and lightning. The red ogres engaged her, forcing her back a step.

Cactus worked with her, raining fire down on their heads as Alex and I slammed through the ogres, cutting a swath in their numbers. Two blond heads popped up beside us, and distantly I knew that Faris and Berget had joined the fight. The sun must have gone down, but I’d barely noticed.

“Blaz, don’t you dare die on me,” I screamed at him, desperate to hear his voice again.

Nothing in my head but silence.

Faris and Berget’s speed outstripped the ogres and they blasted through their ranks, cutting throats and hamstrings, dropping the remainder of them until there were none left standing except for Sas.